Dead serious question.

At some point someone is going to ask you the name of your band or to see your album. Is no one in their lives questioning them on using pictures of murder scenes and lyrics about chopping up women? What happens at Thanksgiving dinner when the subject of your band comes up? How do they tell their significant others that they are in a band called Fetus Face Fuck and their latest EP is named Unborn Child Slasher with songs like "Menstrual Rape Machine"?

What do they do when they request time off work to play a show and their boss asks them about their band? There's no way all of these people are complete sociopaths. Are they all lying about their bands, or do they quit the band soon as someone they care about finds out the fucked up shit they are doing with their free time?

I just find it impossible to believe there are so many people in so many of these bands that are facing zero repercussions in their personal lives.

It's just one of a variety of things you may enjoy but don't discuss with your friends or family - fringe political views, interest in gory horror films, porn consumption habits, etc. Do you discuss all those things with your family too?

I imagine most of the people who play live in these types of bands work in blue-collar fields where nobody really cares what your reputation is. If you work in a warehouse, they're not monitoring your behavior like they would if you were a lawyer.

yes I would say quite same, a lot of people are out of "normal way of life" - and for modern times this also means not in the society of "how do you look" > "apparence" works here? where you need to control your posts on linkedin

Some of these bands are really extremely over the top, but at the end of the day it can't be that different from any filmmaker making a subversive or gory horror movie talking about that with their family. Probably "Yeah I play in a death metal band" is all they need to say. Family won't understand all kinds of art. This is definitely more extreme than a lot of it though - but easy enough to just not go into detail. I would be curious what immediate family members and friends think of those album covers and whatnot though.

I've played goregrind and nobody in my family or friends group blinked an eye. Is it really that much of a step from normal death metal to the eyes/ears of someone that isn't at all into the genre? It's not like my sister is listening to it and going through the lyrics...

Your stuff is pretty tame and not what I'm talking about here. But I guess it wouldn't be a Metal Archives thread if HighwayCorsair didn't point out that he's in a band!

I'd like to imagine they never bring it up to anyone in their personal lives. I certainly wouldn't!

I assume there's two groups of people in bands like this. There's those who are into it as an over the top joke, in the same way as people are into super-gory horror movies... there's a camp aspect to it that pushes boundaries. The other group are the actual shitheads who really do hold bad opinions of people and use the music as an outlet.

For those who fall into the former group, I'm sure it's probably just the same as any slightly transgressive hobby... it might provoke some awkward questions but my guess is it's obscure enough that most family and friends aren't going to be interested enough to care, they'll just decide it's not for them and move on. For those in the latter group, I'd guess that those are probably pretty shitty people and yeah, they likely aren't open about it.

I'm not really interested in finding out who in that scene is who, and nothing about it appeals to me thematically, so I just ignore it all.

“Yeah I play in a death metal band” sums it up fine enough for most people. Not everybody needs to know or more realistically doesn’t care to hear anything beyond that.

Pretty much that last post, and I’d even argue that death metal is overly specific, once you mention it’s some kind of heavy rock, it’ll be considered unlistenable noise anyway. At most you’ll get an “ah, cool”, and that’s it, no one who isn’t already a metalhead will care.

I know a guy who has a bunch of porn and gore grindy type projects, Goremonger is his main one. Anyway I see him every year at a local fest so I'll have to ask him if his project Pre-Teen Pussy Pounder ever comes up with family during the holidays.

Oh no, my relevant experience should have been kept to myself to keep you from feeling insecure or whatever the fuck your problem is, wahhhh

The real question is how often does pornogrind translate to actual porn. Y’all getting laid more or less than the rest of us? Anybody ever ask you to soundtrack their porn?

Who actually enjoys pornogrind? For what reason?

I'm sure Joey Daterape is an upstanding guy.

A lot of these guys just smoke themselves retarded, bit of arrested development as far as their humor goes.

Yeah its all shock value sick humor.

Perhaps the appropriate question would be: are musicians in goregrind/pornogrind bands actually... people?

Lumping goregrind and pornogrind together in the way some of these comments are suggesting isn't appropriate. Pornogrind is basically joke music for people who never progressed past middle school. Goregrind sounds like Carcass and has a tradition of killer bands going back to the late '80s and those bands are on real record labels, play real festivals, and are part of the larger scene.

I think it's pretty clear that the bands being discussed in this context are more your Jig-Ais and your Torsofucks (both goregrind, not pornogrind) and not your Carcasses and Pathologists.

Even those bands are on real labels, have their music pressed to vinyl, and have actual fans that actually listen to the music- the lyrics are stupid and gross but it's a pretty different ballpark than what's basically meme music.

There was a mass shooting a few years ago by a member of a pornogrind band. I guess sometimes the music is indeed sincere and not a joke.

Well, conversely, G.U.T., Rompeprop and Cock and Ball Torture fulfill all of your criteria and they are all pornogrind. There are musical attributes that define these genres, it's not as easy as "pornogrind = bedroom-produced meme music".

Most of porngrind and goregrind musicians use pseudonymous instead of their real names. If they play live, which is just a few of them, they usually use masks too, leather BDSM style. Gutalax is fairly popular, and they are new band for example, but they play with costumes, and you don't see their faces in their shows.

As for the other thing that you asked, if they have to say something to their families and workjob, I don't think that anybody that plays those genres has to worry about their model citizen reputation to be discarded or something, not seeing the kind of private University guy listening to fringe music genres. Most people don't even know what death metal is, much less what are those grindcore subgenres.

I think that is a cool thing though, If I had to force myself to be some kind of suit and tie douchebag to be part of society I would say fuck that, so I understand them more than you I guess.

My read on it is that it runs along the lines of any other mode of extreme entertainment. People used to freak out at Andrew Dice Clay's nursery rhymes, in his case he was simply playing a character saying things that the man behind them had no plan of ever putting into action. I get that there is always the occasional loon that loses his hold on reality and actually acts on the perverted/violent stuff they write about, but I'd venture that 99% of the time, just like Andrew Silverstein likely didn't tell his dirty jokes at the dinner table with his folks, most pornogrind bands keep their art for the stage or for like-minded company.

I grew up playing Mortal Kombat, I didn't feel the need to ever attempt any of the moves I saw on another person, nor did the vast majority of Gen X.

Depends.

Some people use pseudonyms and keep their music very separate from the rest of their lives. Others don't. Old friend/bandmate of mine who released a lot of really extreme stuff (in terms of both sound and subject matter) was completely open about what he did with everyone, including his parents who were very supportive.

I don't see how this is any less applicable to those of us who aren't in bands. I mean I can't be the only one who's been asked at Christmas dinner "so what are you listening to nowadays" and after name-dropping Cock and Ball Torture wondered why their family hasn't been in touch for a whole year.

More people than you think.


No I am not one of them.

I'm more interested in the same questions regarding grindcore with lyrics that focus on stuff like eating diarrhea (is there a subgenre name for this?)

Because then it's like, less about being subversive and shocking, and more like, "What are you, five years old?"

Some of this kind of stuff may actually cross over into legitimate psychological facets of the brain... interesting more than disturbing even.

Eh, there's a pretty distinct line IMO. If your family and friends find out you listen to weird music, you could just laugh it off: "oh, haha yeah it's weird but the riffs are pretty good." But if they go to a Bandcamp page and there's a picture of you as an author of some really weird stuff that has an entire underground community around it, that's something you can't just deny.

Having seen pornogrind binds live, I can't say I had any idea what they were singing about as it was all ultra low gurgle. Other than sound clip intros to songs I wouldn't have been able to tell them apart from most other grind or death metal with a similar vocal style. Not my thing as I don't really care for grind, and most of these bands were using drum machines and seemed more of a single guy playing along with a laptop.

not my favorite style, but i certainly can have fun listening to odour of torture by gut or any rompeprop albums, for example.

fucked up people exists in any place and it won't be any differente on underground community

I don't see why it would be so hard to admit that the aforementioned social stratum has grown to the required size as to sustain such pockets of extremity. And even then it's probably much worse that you think it is - keep in mind that only a fraction get the bright idea to go play in a band in the first place.

Knew a dude who was. Pretty sure his father just ignored his son's weird music and turned a blind eye.

Oh, no! Someone in a metal forum who has playing experience relevant to the question you asked contributed to your conversation!

I would say what he's saying (HighwayCorsair) is reflecting the fact that goregrind is kind of metal music, when porngrind is more into punk scene. That's true for grind in general way, a lot of bands in grind are not connected to metal, sometimes yes, most of the time not. This genre is in there because it's an extrem music with roots in hardcore, as for some genres in metal.

grindcore in a metal way is a serious kind of thing, like bands Terrorizer, Misery Index, Jigsore Terror, Napalm Death and so on, when grind in punk scene is more about fun, parody, being extrem punk, just like Sore Throat or Old Lady Drivers etc. Metal is (not all the time but) serious, first degree, and it's usually quality focus (not technical but quality for sound, compos, execution etc). Punk can't care less for quality. And that's true for content, and that is even more true for the image, no punks would be shame about doing punk right?

I don't see how goregrind/pornogrind is any more awkward a topic to talk with friends and family than being a death metal fan and having to explain that Chris Barnes has never, in fact, fucked someone with a knife, or being a black metal fan and having to account for all the murder, arson, and rampant nazism in the scene. If someone isn't really into metal to begin with they wouldn't have any idea what any of those genre names entail (and who even says "pornogrind" irl?).

As a side note, is anyone really that into Cock and Ball Torture or Torsofuck or whatever to bring them up in a real conversation? If a family member asked me what I was listening to I'd just say "metal" and that's it.

I'm actually pretty curious about his answer

He still has a point.

I don't usually broadcast in details the lyrical themes, aesthetics and whatnot of my favorite death metal bands to people who aren't at least a little familiar with death metal, as I know I'm just going to end up getting dirty looks. "Normies" don't really see much of a difference between the cover art of Tomb of the Mutilated or the cover of a pornogrind band where a hairy guy shoves dead babibes decapitated heads up his ass while fucking a rotten corpse. It's all disgusting to them, so I don't usually go up to my grandma to tell her about how my favorite Cannibal Corpse song is Necropedophile.

I guess what I'm saying is that it doesn't really matter if HighwayCorsair's music sounds "pretty tame" to you, it's still very much music for deranged people, to your average non-metalhead relatives.

I'm not in a band, but what HC is saying makes sense. Just tell your friends and relatives "I play in a death metal band" (or you know... don't... it's not like you have to tell them, as it's obviously not anyone's daytime job to play in a pornogrind band), and unless they ask for more details, you don't have to dig deeper into the subject.

Also, who the fuck actually listens to pornogrind? It's usually terrible music, and even for someone like me, who enjoys a fair bit of gore and violence in his metal, it's way too graphic and disgusting.

I'm usually in a state of extreme intoxication at that festival but I always camp with the same group of guys and he's one of them so I'll try to remember to ask him.