Ok, so I had an interview with a Greek frat on campus. I was sitting in front of a good 40 guys, and each of them had a question for me.

You know what their first question was?

"Ok, favorite thrash metal band, favorite metal album, and if you could see one split up metal band in concert, who would it be?"

Needless to say, I was taken a back.

That got me to thinking, have you guys met any metal fans in unexpected places? Or found out someone who looks like they would despise the genre loved the shit out of it?

And of course, feel free to answer the question that was posed to me!

In 8th grade, I found out my woodshop teacher's favorite band was Slayer. He wouldn't have looked out of place at a Dave Matthews Band concert.

Study Hall Awaits!

I was at the beach a year or so ago and I started talking to this kid. We chilled for most of the afternoon, when I finally sat down and started listening to my iPod. He asked me what I was listening to and I asked him if he liked metal. He was like "fuck yeah" and I'm like "you like Slipknot" and he's like "hell no and then he started showing me some real metal". And that's how I got into metal. We've been great friends since.

A year or two ago there was one of those anti-drug presentations at our school. Afterward, me and one of my metalhead friends were talking to one of the guys who had given the presentation and it apparently he was a big Maiden fan, and had seem them in concert.

I used to work at the local pet store as the mascot. So basically i dressed up as a six foot puppy, walked to the intersection by the store, and danced around with a sign saying "We have puppies." After doing this for a while almost everyone in my town knew about me as the dancing puppy. So one day at work, I went back to the store to take my break and I walked into the bathroom to change out of the costume and someone was knocking on the door. I quickly changed out of it and opened the door to see a clean cut middle aged man with his 4 or 5 year old son who needed to piss. I was wearing my obituary shirt and he started to laugh hystaricly at the fact that the flamboyant puppy at the side of the road was into death metal. We started talking about a lot of the classic bands and I was amazed I found another metalhead in my town (which is very conservative and suburban). It would be safe to say we were mutually shocked

Wore my Somewhere In Time shirt to class last quarter in American Gov. and the teacher noticed it right as he began lecturing. Talked to me from the front of the class on how he was big on punk / thrash / heavy metal and we discussed the Maiden switch-up between Di'Anno and Dickinson. People were getting agitated a bit and he told them to hush.

Weird considering it was near the end of the quarter and this guy is pretty tame. I mean, think a very professional Canadian guy with a Ph. D and a family bringing this up in American Government class, where the topic of the day was how the media pretty much is run by corporate superpowers (which is obvious and true). I have the same teacher this quarter for a different class and he did it again while I was wearing a WASP shirt; we ended up talking about the "heavy metal legitimacy" of mid / late '80s Motley Crue while the class was a bit in awe.

The heaviest bands one of my friends listens to are BFMV, A7X and the like. However, on occasion, he likes listening to some tech-death metal which I introduce to him, such as Psycroptic and Origin. He usually forgets about those songs in 2 days or so

Other than that, noone I know listens to metal as much as I do.

When I went up to Cleveland for the Heathenfest tour with Belphegor, Eluveitie, and Alestorm, I saw a professor from my college, who has a PHD and teaches geology. He was the first in line. He was not up in the front row, he was actually towards the back sitting and reading until the show started. He said he was too old to be in the front He said he loves metal because of how non commercial it is (among other things). I got into a discussion with him about that.

He came into the department where I work on campus about two weeks later, I asked him if he's going to any other shows, he said he's going to see Behemoth twice and Nile, along with Korpiklaani & Týr.

Awesome guy!

That's pretty cool, Ozzy. What came out of the Motley Crue discussion? They're a pretty controversial band in metal and I always like to hear what different metalheads think about them.

I think I may have mentioned this before, but anyway, I had an interesting experience with my W.A.S.P. shirt (It's the "Got Blood?" one) at a cafeteria. A worker who looked like he had some sort of mental illness similar to down syndrome stumbled up got me and shouted that he liked my shirt. At first I figured he just thought the picture was neat, but he kept stumbling over words but I could tell he actually knew who W.A.S.P. were and liked them, his favorite album being "all of them" in his own words.

By the way, which shirt was it you have?

This past Christmas, I was over at my grandma's house. She just got remarried, so her husband's side of the family was there too. They're extremely uppity / wealthy / snobbish. But as we were sitting at the dinner table, my grandma asked me, "So what are you thinking about in terms of the future?" and I was like, "I'm thinking of starting a metal band." My grandma, of course, was appalled, but one of the boys on my stepgrandfather's side (the uppity side) suddenly yells, "NO WAY!!! THAT'S SO COOL! What instruments do you play? What's your favorite band? Do you like Megadeth?" This kid looked really clean-cut, your typical University student... so needless to say, I was surprised! We ended up having a decent conversation about metal for the rest of the night.

To be honest though, I'm not a big fan of "closet metalheads." I don't know why so many people feel the need to "conceal" their love of metal. People will tell me, "Oh it's because of their job or their social status!" and I just don't think that's an excuse.... I know lots of people with good jobs and who are middle or upper-middle class, yet still openly portray themselves as metalheads.

It's another thing to conceal your love for Metal and being smart enough to dress properly on special occasions. I just hate those guys who wear a Metal t-shirt 364 days a year. And besides, you were wearing a "Metal" outfit that day? If not, why sould he?

Anyway, getting back on topic. Once I was making out with a girl when my phone rang. I have Warrior Soul as a ringtone. When she listened to it, she said: "Fuck yeah, Kiuas! I love them. Are you a Metalhead or something?" Needless to say, after a short conversation on Metal, I was about to fuck her so hard she would stay paralyzed for the rest of her life.

For a guy who says he likes "all of them," he's pretty correct. I, too, like all of WASP's albums, which is hard to say for any other band. I have an Unholy Terror shirt (has Blackie on the front clutching a cross with flames and pointing at the viewer).

About the Motley Crue discussion, the first two albums are definitive heavy metal, there's no argument there. My teacher stopped listening to glam back around the early 90s, so he kind of got his thrash and glam mixed up. He's a big fan of Shout At The Devil, as I am with certain songs on there. I considered Theatre of Pain to be a bit 50 / 50 while he considered it rock straight out, especially his reaction to songs like "Home Sweet Home" which he remembers pretty much turning his city into a drag-fest back in the '80s, so he has a bit of resentment. I mean, you have your "City Boy Blues" and "Home Sweet Homes," and then you have your killer tracks like "Fight For Your Rights" and "Save Our Souls," which get on the WASP edge of things. We both thought it was rather stale, though, with Mars keeping it alive all by himself.

We both also thought "Girls, Girls, Girls" was a guilty pleasure - not the whole album, but that specific track and a couple others. It's straight up glam rock, but it has some metal elements and very few metal songs ("Wild Side") in it. After that I can't remember exactly what he said because it was getting a bit embarrassing (something about influencing Skid Row, I think, which makes sense because Skid Row's debut sounds like the Girls, Girls, Girls album).

Personally, and I didn't tell him this, but I think Girls, Girls, Girls is superior to Theater of Pain.

Anyway, it's always funny meeting various types of metalheads.

People miss my point entirely. Yes, you can listen to metal no matter how you present yourself physically. I am merely saying that there are people out there who feel that liking metal is embarassing and that they have to look and act like everyone else in public, and basically be a conformist tool to avoid being cast out of their social circle. This is where people usually try to throw it back in my face by saying, "Well it's the same thing with you and your metalhead friends. You're afraid of being cast out of them too!" That is inapplicable to me, because I have no friends that I am particularly close to, and I definitely do not identify with any kind of "group." As sad as that may sound, I'd rather be the lone wolf than a mindless sheep among a social herd.

If that's what you meant, then I totally agree with you.

My 8th grade science teacher was a big metal fan. He listened to stuff along the lines of Judas Priest, Slayer, Metallica, etc. which I was also heavily into at the time. One day I was walking to a friends house and cut across the middle school park, and I see him out by his car blaring Judas Priest as loud as possible. He was a great guy.

My bass teacher (who I assumed came from a jazz/classical background) was going to start teaching me an Iron Maiden song that I brought in, and I warned him he might be somewhat startled by the vocals. He said something to the effect of "It's nothing, I listen to Dream Theater."
We had a pleasant discussion of DT, and he urged me to get 6DOIT, which is the best DT release I've heard to date. I also played him some Necrophagist to show him the bass work and he instantly loved it.
I believe my doctor enjoys metal to some degree...not too sure though.

A friend of my uncle in his fifty's now came over last week. The guy looked like your typical middle-aged working class dude, and to my surprise complimented my Bathory shirt and asked if I knew who Bulldozer was So we get to talking and he's into all sorts of stuff like that.

http://www.metal-archives.com/images/2/ ... _photo.jpg
Is your doctor one of these guys?

The university of Michigan has a metal frat but 99% percent of the guys in it are hipsters and listen to hipster indie rock and/or hipster hardcore

Never had the pleasure of meeting this fellow but a professor from the University of Northern British Columbia used to distribute extremely underground and cult cds to a local record shop in my home town. He brought in old Cogumelo releases, other stuff like Belial, Veles, Cirith Ungol, Crystal Age, Kampfar, Manegarm, Abigor, Himinbjorg, lots of no colour releases... this was all back in the mid-late 90's. Nowadays many of the releases that were in that store are incredibly rare, and I marvelled about how this guy had such an amazing insight on what he brought into the store.

Other than this I remember meeting one of my best friends about 8-9 years ago, neither of us looked very metal at the time but he was wearing a Kataklysm coat, and I remarked on it and he was quite shocked to learn that I was into their old stuff, hell I got him into underground Black Metal and he has been a maniac about it ever since.

In middle school I had a sub teacher. Just a normal looking guy, he commented on my Pantera shirt back then. Many years later, I run into him back in November of 2009 at the Vader/Decrepit Birth show. And then again at the Nile show. And again at the Arch Enemy/Exodus/Arsis show. And again at the Behemoth/Suffo/Goatwhore show.

I didn't meet anyone, happened the other way around. Classmate of mine was surprised to learn I like metal, she said I looked like "The Avril Lavigne" type...

*Shivers*

Do you wear neckties over t-shirts?

Lies.



This, though. This is awesome.

I was talking to a friend in the school corridor and asked him if he would go and see Candlemass. Then a new teacher walking past us stops and says: "Candlemass? Thats doom metal. I play in a doom metal band!"

I turns out he is the basist of the Swedish doom metal band Griftegård which are quite awesome. He doesen't work in my school anymore but he visited the teahcers today and I saw him. He was wearing a jacket with an Ahab patch with the logo and "Sail and kill"

My best friend graduated as an art education major, huge metal head, he spent a year subbing before realizing that there were no jobs available in art education and gave up subbing. As I was reading this I imagined my friend being your sub, we went to all of those shows this year too .

My band played at my friend's school's talent show.
After the show, the vice principal came up, and said he listened to all sorts of old metal back in the day.
So we firugured, "oh, Slayer, awesome"
But when we asked him he said, "The heavy stuff, like Celtic Frost."
I nearly popped a boner, I was very excited.
How cool is it to have a vice principal who likes Celtic Frost.

So I was in a session with my math tutor, and we started talking about 80's music and he was talking about Jethro Tull, and I said that my favorite band from the 80's was Dio. and he was like "who's Dio? Nobody would know who that is because nobody likes metal." and I was like "your wrong". so basically he challenged me and said that we would go out into the library (where we were) and ask some random guy if he likes Dio or Jethero Tull more. So we find a dude, and my tutor says "who's better, Jethero Tull, or DIo?" and the dude was like "Yeah! f***in Dio!!!!" and I had totally won the argument : )

Win.

Guess your tutor wasn't aware of Dio's cameo in that horrible popular Jack Black movie that came out recently. Every teenage boy who likes rawk knows who Dio is.

C'mon, it wasn't THAT bad. And I wouldn't exactly call it recent...4 years now.

Wasn't Dio featured in one of the Guitar Hero games? Also then there's that Killswitch Engage cover...

I was at school one day and the teacher infront of the class I was going to say that I was wearing my Eaten Back To Life shirt and stopped me. The first thing that I expected was being told to take it off or zip up my jacket. She literally said, "Thats one of the best damned albums out there!" I was utterly shocked that this mild mannered looking woman in what appeared to be mid to late 50s listened to Cannibal Corpse's work, so we started talking about metal through the ages and found out that the old school death metal and black metal bands were her favorites, and how "as good as Devourment is, they signaled the decline in quality of death metal." So I ended up being late to class, but the teacher wrote me a pass and it was all good!

Lol, no. I wear regular clothes. I happen to look much younger than I am apparenly, which I assume is the case....

Ive had several professors and teachers who were familiar with metal. But the one that takes the cake will always be my sophmore year of Uni.

I was in a higher level political science class called Nietzche and Postmodernism. The girl sitting next to me was talking about her boyfriend, who was apperantly really into black metal, and how he had showed her the Gaal interview on Metal: A Headbangers Journy. I began to tell her the story of Gaal torturing that guy in his basement for a few hours. My professor walked in at this moment, and all he heard me say was "Yeah, theyre not allowed to come into the US because their vocalist tortured some dude for six hours."

My professor just turns around, looks at me, and goes "Oh, Gorgoroth?"

I was rather suprised. Especially since this guy was a college professor who took his job rather seriously and wore a suit everyday. But I guess if the guy teaching a class on Nietzche was going to know of a black metal band, it might as well be Gorgoroth eh?

As a matter of fact, me and a friend were at the grocery store in little ol' Andrews, Texas today and we met a dude that worked at Eschaton Records!
We were buying the necessities of life (Doritos and ranch dip) when I saw a guy with long hair and a black T-shirt on. Upon closer inspection, I saw that the back of his shirt depicted a corpse-painted face and some macabre text below it. I asked him about his shirt and he said he was on him way to interview a black metal band (who's name I can't remember). We talked for a little while and parted ways.

This is so wonderful to me, because here in Andrews, NOBODY listens to metal, and 99% don't even know the concept of Black Metal. It made our day.

My win probably had to be walking into the University cafeteria line wearing a Metal Blade Records shirt and the chef stopping to ask me who I liked on Metal Blade. We proceeded to have several good chats over the next semester. Sadly he is no longer at our school.

There was also a security guard who commented on my Suffocation shirt. And we talked about death metal for a bit.

I know what you mean man! At school and MySpace and shit I got made fun of by other people including other metal kids because I always wore band shirts to school everyday, was pretty much the only kid with long hair, and wore spiked wristbands and whatnot. Most of the metal kids just listened to typical Maiden - Sabbath stuff and acted like I was "trying too hard" and just "showing off" or "trying to be a hard ass" plus I barely ever talked to anybody except a couple people who weren't even into metal who I got along with much better anyways. On Myspace basically just for wearing corpsepaint and all that jazz I'd get insulted by past "friends" and stuff saying I was a poser and wannabe or whatever. Some of them were hardcore Black Metal fans too. I had plenty of normal pictures without corpsepaint too and just did random stuff. Metal is about being who you want to be and if you choose to express yourself that way then there shouldn't be any problem with it!

Anyways, one teacher knew some metal at my school and commented on my Slayer and Emperor shirt but he started going on and on about Metallica, Iron Maiden, Candlemass, Nirvana, Led Zepplin, Areosmith and all these other bands I either don't like or just don't really care for so I tried to avoid him since I guess haha! He always asked me some annoying personal questions like what I do at home and why I sat by myself at lunch or who my friends were. It's annoying. -_-

A few weeks ago in the media center at my school, a kid was playing Old Man's Child really loud on his computer, and I said to him, "Awesome! Glad to hear some OMC!" He replied by changing the song to a Taylor Swift one. Grrrrrr.....