Lame. Are people really this myopic in their devotion to being a ‘true metalhead’? She probably liked you and was trying to make conversation.

The only one I can really think of is a story I've told before, but I'll tell it again because that's how I roll.

On my ex and I's first date, we went to Red Robin for food. Now, she always made sure she looked nice when we were going out anywhere, even if just to Qdoba or McDonald's or something, so of course she looks really good, meanwhile I'm rocking jeans and a Skeletonwitch shirt because whatever, that's how I dress. I was also listening to Fleshgod Apocalypse in the car because the last girl I (sorta) dated couldn't stand my music and always used to take out my iPod and put hers in, and I swore I was done with that shit on a regular basis. She made some comment about how it reminded her of Metalocalypse, but hey, she knew nothing about metal and wanted me to like her, no big deal at all.

Neither of those moments are the awkward part, and we got no shit when we got to the restaurant despite us looking polar opposites, the awkward part was after we sat down. If anybody has ever been to Red Robin, they'll know they're one of those places like Chili's that plasters every open space of wall with framed pictures from the "good ol' days". Now, one of these pictures caught my eye. Right above our table, there was an old timey black and white photo of a man in dirty work clothes turning a bolt on a huge steam machine of some sort. Those who know their metal should recognize that description as the cover of Stop at Nothing by Dying Fetus. I didn't realize, but I was apparently staring at the old picture, I guess the fact that it was the old, undoctored photo was just interesting to me because I'd never seen the original and was only familiar with it through death metal, so it was just something new for me. She realized I was staring and asked what I was looking at. I snapped out of my gaze and said "Oh nothing, it's just that's the cover of a Dying Fetus album".

Wanna know which phrase instantly ruins any mood and guarantees you won't get any action later? It's "that's the cover of a Dying Fetus album".

Not with my girlfriend. I basically have groomed her into liking Death Metal and Black Metal, although she tends to lean more towards popular stuff like Behemoth and Dimmu Borgir. Bringing up a band named Dying Fetus just makes her laugh.

I'm talking actual women here, not made up imaginary girls who like metal.

Awww, how creative of you. I've never heard that one before!

Haha Bastard, that shit reminds me of something. An old ex of mine, who was open to a bit of metal but hated growling (she liked Symphony X and The Gathering a fair bit as I recall) ended up going out with another dude later, who oddly enough became my band's first bassist. Anyway, this guy was into a lot of death and black metal too and he and her brother used to play tricks on her like downloading Dying Fetus's "Raped on the Altar" onto her computer, and calling up my radio show asking me to dedicate Beherit to her. GOod times...

Says the guy who lives in Tamriel.

Haha, there are literally about zero where I'm from, I met none in school nor in the years since. I've met plenty at shows and in Chicago and such, so I'm not one of those tools who thinks they don't exist.

I've met a few where I live, otherwise the rest that would be remotely close are into -core or crap like Avenged Sevenfold and Slipknot.

my female 'it's complicated' friend person companion doesn't even realise i'm listening to music mostly, she just switches off.
i don't understand how she can not be aware of death metal and war metal etc playing in the lounge constantly
maybe i'm lucky aye ha ha

I got about three off the top of my head, and all three occurred during my short tenure in college.

1) The first one happened during a regular day while i was walking to the bus stop after one of my classes ended, so on my there i got approached by this mid aged guy outta nowhere and he said to me "you know Jesus loves you",and then continues to walk away in one motion like nothing happened. So there I was standing in place for a good 10 seconds like WTF just happened,till i just continued on my way to the bus stop.It wasn't till while I was waiting for the bus, and I had looked down at my watch, and simultaneously saw that i was wearing a 'seven churches' tee, that it made sense. I had a good chuckle to myself off that one.

2) This one was more my doing, so one day on my way to my class I had seen this guy(who was wearing a Suffocation shirt) along with this girl who were walking in the direction I was coming from. So i figured I'd give him the ole harmless 'nice shirt' nod, or a small "cool, Suffocation" remark as we passed each other. But as we did ,it seem as though my feet,mouth,eyes, and brain were not all on the same page. As we passed each other for whatever reason I aimlessly stared at the two with my mouth half open as if I was about to say something, as I thought to myself "uh,uh,uh,uh" (the ultimate brain fart). As they looked back they had the most 'what the hell is this retard staring at' look on their faces,all of this while I continued to walk the other way, as did they, this lasted only a couple seconds, but felt like ages. Afterwards I thought to myself "how hard was it just to say nice shirt".

3) During one of my semesters, my English professor for whatever reason began taking an interest in me, so one day we had what was to be one of many active classroom discussions,(can't remember the topic,some shit about trends and clothing). So anyway, the discussion was going fine,till lo and behold my professor word for word out of nowhere had said "class, take a look at Robert's shirt(Alter Of Madness), interesting isn't it, especially how the faces blend with each other". Instantly my face had shown an expression of 'oh why thank you' as my mind thought, "STOP....PLEASE....STOP". All I remember was seeing every face in the classroom being drown to me with looks of confusion and negative thoughts, so for an already withdrawn person like myself, this was the worst. At the end, I can understand and appreciate her just being kind and all, but on the other hand it's just like........"Please Don't".

Never actually had a "awkward metal moment", though I do remember screaming "BRING ME THE HORIZON IS NOT METAL" in pure rage after somebody I know said that I "should check their brutal shit out".

Two stories:-

I asked the staff at a record shop to order the new (at the time) My Dying Bride ep, "Symphonaire Infernus et Spera Empyrium".

I wrote the title down, then told the staff in a manly voice the band name - whereupon she called the distributor and put an order in for "My Dying Bird".

Second story - this was in Brisbane, at the old Skinny's record shop 'cross the road from where it is now. Bought an Overkill "Fuck You" t-shirt, lime-green logo and middle finger brazenly poised. Put it on and stepped out to wander around the city.

Could not deal with the stares - everyone was glaring at me. Pussed out and and went back to exchange it for a Kreator "Extreme Aggression" shirt, only to have the staff think I was shoplifting.

imagine wearing a jesus is a cunt t-shirt around town, that'd man you up real fast ha ha ha

This one did not happen to me, and I cannot guarantee the story's veracity, but it's an amusing one nevertheless.

Some guy wore an Impaled Nazarene t-shirt at work. The shirt said "Finnish Satanworshipper" in the back (in Finnish, that is. Suomalainen saatananpalvoja.), and some time later, the resident Jesus fanatic at his work wore a shirt that said "Finnish Jesusworshipper" in the front, and "bless satanworshippers" in the back.

Hmmm... Haven't really had many awkward metal moments, but there was this one time after an Amon Amarth concert where I scared the shit out of some prom kids.

They were all taking pictures together (on South Street in Philly... wtf?) and were all dressed nice. I ran up, half drunk, sweaty and bleeding (cut on my eyebrow, lots of blood for a small cut) threw up the horns and screamed "SATAN!" as loud/long as I could. Hahaha, the looks on their faces were priceless. I took off immediately after.

Fucking EPIC!!!
EDIT: You have been sigged.

Most Metal thing I've read all day.

Methinks you just gave those people this weird story they can tell their kids down the road. Hilarious stuff!

I once wore corpse paint for a school social. I was trying to copy Dead, and it didn't turn out too badly. I scared the hell out of a bunch of 13 year olds at the entrance, and I crossed the road in the middle of the town at about 7 at night wearing full on black clothes and rockin the corpse paint.
I got interesting comments from pretty much everyone. It was a good night.

Two years ago, at an In Flames gig, Anders invited someone from the audience to sing "clayman". The dude did a very VERY good job (actually, he was better than Anders) So after the concert, I'm walking toward the exit, when suddenly someone said "hey man, you did an awesome job right there singing Clayman!". I responded: "that wasn't me man, sorry." But he insisted, "are you sure? you look like him! are you in a band?". Again I said: "that wasn't me, I just look like him, we both have long, blond hair" The dude still didn't believe me, and kept staring at me..... I walked away, feeling.... weird.

Apparently a shopkeeper near where I live now got arrested for selling those...

Oh man, I remember one. Didn't really happen to me, I was just there. I was in line to get into New England Metal Fest, and this was circa 2001 or 2002. I'm standing in line waiting for the doors to open at 11:30 or whatever it was that year on the Sunday of the festival, and as we're all out standing along the outer wall of Palladium, this Nissan Sentra drives by to get in that big parking lot in the back. If you've been, you know which one I'm talking about. Anyhow, this Sentra is beat the hell down. Its was like a 91-92 model, it was purple, rust spots everywhere, hubcaps are missing, its riding real low like the suspension is beat the hell up. Inside of it are 4 dudes all in corpsepaint, all of whom are morbidly obese. One kid in line who was like 17 and skinny and shit sees this car and scream "FUCK YEAH BLACK METAL" or something like that. In the process of this like 2 second event, one dude turns in the car from the passenger side and just looks like super hurt ego wise.

Oh, also Luke Jaeger from Sleep Terror/Vile/etc. being like 17 on AOL's Music Metal and sending a picture showing how brutal he was by wearing face paint and a Sepultura "Sepultribe" shirt was up there in terms of "awkward things I witnessed" as well.

Back in high school the school had a "Blackout" football game where everyone is encouraged to wear black so when the stands are full it looks like a sea of black, and for some reason that's supposed to be school spirited. Anyway, I was drum major for the marching band at the time, and the band director let me wear corpsepaint the whole time, so that was pretty fun. We performed a halftime show and everything while I was wearing corpsepaint, it was pretty fun.

People didn't understand it though, they shied away or called it KISS makeup, to be expected. The band guys liked it though.

Some chav saw my Butchered At Birth hoodie and he says something like "thats one disgusting jacket" "im not gonna mess with you, you might kill me"

The first part is sort of funny than awkward and the second part is slightly awkward

Once a year at my Martial Arts Dojo we have sort of a medium sized Get together with some students of another Dojo from across the Bay area. Underneath my Gi was a Fleshgod Apocalypse shirt (The one with the Cadaver Violinist: http://www.fleshgodapocalypse.com/shirts/bloodyviolinist.jpg), After I got out of my Gi one of the students from the other Dojo's, who was about a year older than me looks at my shirt and Says "Do you play Violin?" I then explain that it is (in Layman's terms) "A Heavy metal shirt". The girl look precedes to ask 'What's Heavy Metal?". One of the other guys from the other dojo then starts to explain what Heavy Metal is and I was used as an example Model just standing awkwardly.

I was in a stripclub when suddenly a symphonic bm song by a local band starts playing, later that nigh I was getting a lap dance and the striper then looks at me and says "you better be into cool stuff and not that shit like Korn and Slipknot" then she tells me that she's the girlfriend of the drummer of that band.

I grew up in a very religious Christian family against secular music. When I was 10 back in 1995, my mom bought me a shirt with flames that said OZZY hotshot or something on it. It was an Ozzy Osborn shirt but she didn't know and she just called it the hotshot shirt. We were going to some church convention and that night I wore the "hotshot shirt", I remember that night strange looks and poeple being a little gaurded against talking to me.

That Sunday the preacher spoke against secular music, particularly metal and how it influences children. He actually got all these example, and I distinctly remember him talking about Deicide's Glen Benton with his upside down cross on his forhead and reading some quotes about his goals on turning people against God. My sister even went up to the alter call to repent or whatever because she had been listening to a bunch of music on the radio that wasn't Christian. Mom asked me if I wanted to go up too because I had listened to it with my sister, I just said no thanks.

A few years later when I got into metal, I remembered that shirt and the service and connected the dots.

I once decided the wear my "Preacher's Daughter" shirt by 3 Inches of Blood to school http://pf5.corpseclothing.com/3inchesofblood-8342i.jpg
And as I was walking away from one of the administrators, they told me to stop and explain what I had on my shirt. At first I thought they were looking on the front, when really they were just pissed off about the Pentagram and Inverted Cross. I vaguely remember giving some huge speech on religion or something and then the administrator was dumbfounded over what I said (I was 15) because he probably didn't believe I (I didn't ever talk in school) could give such a detailed speech or some shit. I don't really remember, but after that, rumors started that I was a satanist (As if that was offensive) so then as in an effort to troll people, I remember wearing some Christian metal band that distinctively had a cross on it, and people were confused. I went up to the administrator and bombarded him with "OH LOOK, YOU'RE NOT GONNA REPORT ME FOR THIS?"

It was great. Not exactly awkward, but a great moment either way.

I enjoy reading these stories. i demand more.

Awesome thread. I've got a couple which aren't too funny, but certainly awkward.

Last summer, I went into my job, at a grocery store, on my off day to get my check. I was wearing what I usually wear: band shirt, and cargo shorts or jeans. On that day I had on a Vital Remains shirt that was influenced by a Motorhead shirt. It had inverted crosses and 666's over it. As I walked in, the security guard notices me and says hello as I walk into the store. After getting my check and walking toward the exit, the guard greets me again and asks "Hey, what does your shirt say?" I said it's a metal shirt of a band called Vital Remains. Now he looks confused and just says " well, here, take this" and hands me a note. Without looking at it, I just nod and lightly smile and uncomfortably say thanks as I walk out. Then I opened it up, and it had the name and address of a local church. From that point on, he started greeting me more often, and handing me a couple more notes, with bible passages written on them. I never got on him about it, though. I just went on working and just avoided confrontation. Thankfully, he doesn't work there anymore.

In summer of 2010, My ex girlfriend and I were going to go see Destroyer 666 in Atlanta. A week or two before the trip, I was invited to a dinner with her and her family, which included her grandparents, aunt, uncle, and cousins. During the dinner, her aunt, or grandmother, asked us about the trip. She asked what band we were going to see. My ex, looking uncomfortable, just shrugged, and pointed over to me and said " he knows" or something like that. At this point, I was really nervous and didn't want to offend her family, who are Christian. So I just said " It's a ... metal band". They just looked confused and just went on about the dinner.

A few weeks ago, me and some friends went to go see Judas Priest in St. Louis. We were in the second row, and thoroughly rocking the fuck out. In the middle of a JP song, the tallest person I have ever seen in person (Probably 7 feet) comes up the rows of chairs and comes up behind my friend, who is about 5'10 himself, and asks to get through and go to his wife in the first row. My friend said something like "dude, you can just climb over us." He was drunk off his ass, and just stood there for a few seconds. Noone wanted to fuck with him. But this drunk guy in the row behind got pissed off, and started shouting and getting angry with him. Before you know it, fists start flying and I'm in total shock as I'm witnessing this fight 6 feet away from me. The pituitary giant falls over onto a chair and smashes it to the ground. My friend, in shock, oddly just sits down in his chair politely like he was waiting for tea. It took about 3 or 4 big security guys just to handle the giant. This wasn't really awkward, but more shocking and fucking hilarious. My buds and I talked and joked about this the whole trip home.

A friend of mine wanted to start a patch vest, so he went to a secondhand shop but the woman there wouldn't sell him anything and told him to leave the store because he was wearing a Suicide Silence shirt with a crucified Jesus on it. Why he even bought that shirt I have no idea, he doesn't even like deathcore

Got a new one, this one is still in motion actually.
I get gear and stuff from a local music store which I leave band\members wanted ads at all the time, one day the manager of the store tells me about this kid who love Death Metal, like me, (I had just got through showing off a "Maze of Torment" riff) so I decide to text him, we go through a couple of bands off each other, he's heard of a couple of my fav's, I've heard of NONE of his, I start feeling a little poser, "Shit those guy's must be super underground! " then we decide to formally introduce ourselves, my last name is Dies (un-modified in any nature it's the one I was born with) he make's a huge deal about what horrid and creepy name it is, and how I should use a stage name instead of using that name, when he finally gets off his high horse he tell's me his last name... Holycross. One word pronounced how it's spelled. so I look up his favorite band "The Devil Wears Prada", if you've heard of them you've already got face-palm, if you're lucky enough not to have, they're Christian-core, all his favorite bands a core band's that typically have very Christian lyrics. Now I have no real problem associating with him as I am Non-denominational Christian, so we have got some sort of middle ground, I just have no idea how he's going to react when he figure's out my computer screen alone has more inverted cross's and pentagrams than your average Satanic church or that my last stage name was "Seraphengorger"
so yeah the situation is kinda awkward.

I hate when this happens. It's annoying because usually you have to explain it too much to people. I go for the usual "they're a metal band" too.

Not awkward but interesting considering some of the experiences in these stories.

I work in an academic library usually in the history reading room but quite often in the theology room downstairs, there is no dresscode as such so i usually wear metal/punk shirts to work. i have had unusual looks but never any comments.
The furthest i have pushed it so far is wearing a Dead Congregation shirt and a Teitanblood shirt (the one with the proclomation split artwork). While i have had unusual looks i have never had any comments. I guess the fact that i am polite, curteous (usually) and good at my job counts for more than my clearly doomed soul, should I feel offended that nobody wants to save it.

Yeah man just show that bitch Kvelertak and you'll have her in bed within 20 minutes of listening.

Last summer I was in Scotland and I bought a copy of Terrorizer Magazine cause it's cheaper/more readily available in the UK. (obviously) Anyways, I was in the Glasgow airport ready to go home, and the security guards decide to search my bags cause I look sketchy or something. They pull out the copy of Terrorizer and get super freaked out cause it has the word "Terror" in it. So obviously I'm a terrorist. To make it worse, it came with a couple of those Fear Candy CD samplers and they said Terrorizer on them too. The guards had to ask me a shit ton of questions about what was on the CDs and what my intentions were (all of this was made even funnier by the fact that they had thick Glaswegian accents) Then they flipped through the pages of the magazine and realized what it was (their faces were fantastic as they looked at the pictures) and let me go. It was pretty hilarious.

Must be annoying getting asked the same question every thirty seconds when your trying to get it in

I was wearing a Blind Guardian shirt at school, the Tales From the Twilight World one. Despite the big, shiny, gold letters saying BLIND GUARDIAN on the front, I've been asked several times why I was wearing a Twilight shirt. :/

Once when I thought I was home alone, I threw on some Crimson Glory and began air-guitaring and putting on the imaginary fucking concert of a goddamn lifetime for my two cats. The music was so loud I didn't hear my girl come home, just in time for my solo on fucking Heart of Steel. Must have impressed her because she just smiled and kissed me.