Karl Klockars

I used to listen to a lot of metal.  A lot of Sepultura, a lot of Slayer, a lot of Fear Factory and Machine Head.  Mostly mainstream mid-to-late 90′s stuff (or at least as mainstream as metal can get) but not a whole lot of bands who have nothing but knives and goatheads for logos.  And I’ve been listening to a lot more metal again lately, after a decent hiatus (in which I discovered other various musical gutter stylings).  I blame Kuma’s.

And ever since I met The Girl That Would Be The Wife, she’s been trying to puzzle out this guy who claims to have, at one point, had a ponytail.  A bunch of holes in his face with metal through them.  Flannel shirts, Sketcher boots and torn up jeans.  (I still have a pair of camouflage shorts, just in case I trip and fall into an Ozzfest one of these years.)

And I think I’ve figured out exactly what it is that attracted me to the hardcore.  I think.

The Girl always likes to ask me, “What were you so mad about?”  To which I have no answer.  I guess the assumption makes sense – happy shiny people listen to happy shiny music, right?  And everyone that listens to the METAL has to be totally mad at their mom for dressing them funny, correct?  Not exactly.  But I can see why you’d say that.

When the sum of the lyrical content of most metal songs are “Satan rocks and I’m gonna kill your face til’ you DIEEEEE” it would seem that the listener absolutely must be enraged like, all the time.  But maybe we should look a little closer to what kind of kids are getting into that crazy evil rock and roll.

Maybe a lot of the kids are poorly parented, maybe a lot of them are unnaturally aggressive.  Maybe a ton of them are angry.  Angry at a world that doesn’t seem to fit for them.  Mad at the swirling existence that is  adolescence and hormones that doesn’t have a place in it just for them.  Upset that they can’t be happy and shiny.  Probably a majority of them.

Of course, there’s another kind of kid.  The kind of young’un that came from one smaller school (where he wasn’t much liked) to a much larger school (where he wasn’t known by next to anyone, and everyone he did know didn’t want much to do with him at all).  The kind of kid that’s underweight, insecure, gangly, and generally scared of a whole lot of everything.

The kind of kid whose mom really did dress him funny.  The kind of kid who didn’t know how to break the rules, and moreover, didn’t want to.  The kind of kid who didn’t have a whole lot to hang onto in a big nasty world of ninth grade, but did know one thing – that Guns N’ Roses and AC/DC stuff sounded kinda cool.

So maybe the kid gets into the rock and roll on the radio.  And maybe he associates himself with the kids around him that seem to like the rock and the roll.  Maybe some of them wear Metallica t-shirts, or Megadeth patches on their jean jackets.  (The early 90s in suburban Chicago were a great time to be alive, fashionwise.)  And maybe some of them listen to cassettes of bands like Deicide and Morbid Angel after class, when they go smoke weed in the park.

And that kid finds a safe little corner of the world in all that double-bass drum and all that shredding guitar.  The power chords and the screaming harmonics make sense when you hear them through the prism of knowing that you’re different from everyone else, and you know that you’re not going to be the same, so why even try?

When you listen to THE METAL, you’re safe.  You’re insulated away from the world that you’re kinda afraid of.  It keeps people away from you.  And even moreso, it keeps a lot of people away from you that you would prefer stay away.  (Except when they’re teasing you about your ponytail and your goofy wristbands that you wear because James Hetfield wears them onstage.)  It keeps you safe and secure in a world that you build up around you.  You’re especially safe when you stay in the basement, practicing guitar solos.  METAL is not really for socialites.

It’s for screwed up little kids who want to surround themselves with a whole bunch of scary-lookin’ dudes who can be an alliance against those other people who would cause you harm.  If some football guy thinks about beating up that goofy looking kid, he might think he’d also have to face off against that cranked-out guy who you only see in shop class who looks like he always carries some sort of homemade knife.

It’s a place to find solace.  It’s a good feeling to know that you have a niche, a place to be.  Even if it’s across the street, watching your friends smoke cigarettes they stole from the gas station.  Doesn’t matter.  It was nice to know that I had a little self-made home and community.  The cameraderie of slamming into a bunch of sweaty dudes at the Pantera show of the month was just a perk.

But possibly moreso than the security is the small, electric feeling of power.  That when you’re listening to and associating with the lead-booted thumps of noise that make up all those old thrash metal records, you get that feeling of being a little unstoppable.  And when you’re about 14 and everyone seems to be stopping you left and right, some of that freedom feels pretty good.