Of Death and Awkward Monsters

Subcultures prevail in modern society, many times paving the way for a commercialisation of what at one point had started out as a reform against society’s restraints. In the world of underground culture, many rebellious movements have spread their influence towards more commercial scenes. Zainab Slemang investigates one subculture that has yet to fall prey to the desirable world of popular culture commercialisation.

Cape Town has a wonderfully active nightlife. On any given day, in various clubs, bars, sports halls, cocktail lounges and the like, people are found congregating in order to assimilate and enjoy the power and virtues of live entertainment. While this may be true, it is more than likely that once venturing into a club where music that is regarded as “heavy” or outside the mainstream of popular genres, you’ll find yourself tossed in a pit with the most fearsome of lions ever encountered. Many metal-heads of all ages have constantly criticised mainstream radio and other forms of popular culture for writing off heavier genres of rock but there are still devoted heavy metal fans who believe that introducing these types of music into the mainstream would ultimately lead to a “selling-out” and ruination of these obscure genres which only appeal to a niche market of those with a more abrasive musical taste. The lovingly devoted fans of metal music have always been widely misunderstood and granted their sense of fashion and, at times, unnerving behaviour and lifestyles have not always helped those of us who conform to the standards of the common type and retain the belief that we are normal, to understand them any better.
Attending various heavy metal gigs over the past few months, there has occurred to me a strange sense of awe and amazement, not only at the bands and the music they produce but at the audiences which they attract. Before venturing into the unknown abyss of heavy metal music, which seemed to recall in me a violent reproach of anything conformist or regarded as highly acceptable in the eyes of a society blinded by contemporary popular culture and to which I wholly subscribe, it became apparent that no amount of “googling” would shed any sunshine on the numerous confusing and arbitrary questions which were attaching themselves in my mind like maggots to a heap of dung. Being a neophyte to this seemingly disenfranchised subculture, I blindly went forth in a pursuit of clarity and understanding about this underground movement. So I threw all caution to the wind and decided to approach the seemingly unapproachable in the form of the actual musos—the guitar-toting, black-clad, pierced figures representative of a Gotham-like culture which many believe to be satanic.
“Metal is more than a culture. It becomes a lifestyle,” one ardent fan told me. “Especially in America, where metal is much huger than it is here [in South Africa], both fans and metal bands live a metal lifestyle.” So what exactly is this “metal lifestyle”? And who are the people who support this ever-growing underground subculture? If statistics are anything to go by, it would appear that heavy metal is particularly appealing to adolescents, specifically males, as it seems to relate to those issues which have been flung into the red corner of society, characterised by its loud, angry, and violent and, to most, intolerable sound. Most of its devotees, and this is especially true in the American context, find at a heavy metal concert a comfort zone away from the alienation of the typical nuclear family with its crippling notions of conformity, self-denial and obedience. All the frustration caused by loneliness and cynicism within tumultuous contexts of life is obliterated, many a time in the arena of rage and celebration known fondly as the mosh pit. The mosh pit is usually an area in front of the stage that is not cordoned off but where the audience take part as a group in a skirmish of frenzied jumping, dancing and pushing. A good deal of stage-diving also occurs as well as a resultant number of bruises.
While most of its audience remain white middle-class teenagers exasperated by the loss of control in their lives and angry with the world and everyone in it, metal music has been evolving and has become more diversified with an incorporation of social and political messages within its chords ringing deep with revolutionary power and influence. This direction is not entirely a bad one yet it clearly steers away from the mentality of true metal-heads who believe in the pacification of the individual through materialism. However, one can only relate this to very few individuals in the South African context as metal has not quite grown into the seismic proportions which it encompasses abroad. For most South African musicians and fans of metal, the meaning of metal culture lies within a fervour towards the music itself. “I think the meaning of being in a band is about owing a passion for music and having a passion for creativity,” asserts Craig, a guitarist for the Cape Town-based metal band Betray the Emissary. “It’s the sound, the whole idea of being in a band and just being so involved in something when you’re taking it seriously that it becomes more than just the music.” Watching the guys of Betray the Emissary in action, it is not a difficult feat to believe that they truly possess a passion for what they do. Their live performances are loud and energetic and seem to be fuelled by more power than Eskom is providing South Africans with at the moment.
Recently, attending a metal event aptly titled May We Rock and held at a tiny hall of a sports club somewhere in the suburbs, the realisation of the culture struck me like a thunderbolt from the heavens above. For those ordinary beings whose disposition does not allow them to fully appreciate the onerous task of listening to music which emits high-pitched screams and the beating of a drum so loudly that it could wake the dead, the idea that there is even a subculture where devout listeners play Halloween dress-up on a daily basis, intimidating old grannies and scaring little kids with their gothic appearance, is enough to jolt them out of their inertia and shy away from all music that produces frightening creatures dressed in ripped, black clothing and wielding arm cuffs with spikes sharp enough to tear through your throat. Cutthroat as it may seem, identifying yourself with a culture by conforming to the image that that culture represents is not an entirely new concept. David Webb, a death metal musician, agrees. “I guess it’s about trying to fit in. It all boils down to trying to find who you are, find an identity. Asking yourself ‘Am I Goth?’ or ‘Am I a rocker?’” David himself is dressed entirely in black when we meet and when I enquire about the image he is trying to convey, he shrugs. “I, personally, don’t care about fashion. There’s a reason why I don’t wear death-metal shirts because I hate trying to fit in with death-metal guys ‘cause [I find them] stuck up. There’s an entire culture behind it, like, if you’re a jock, you wear the pink shirt and you can only sit with those guys. So with the death-metal dudes, so I don’t wanna do that. I don’t want to place myself in any category.” Even so, his mere physical appearance contradicts his words completely. A long blonde ponytail hangs at his back, his chin beneath his lip is pierced and the black attire which he dons clearly harks back to the metal days of Ozzy Osbourne and his Black Sabbath crew.
One common assumption of Goths and metal fans in general, is their fear of daylight. Their love of darkness and power is epitomised in their appearance and in the music that they listen to. Speaking to a few audience members at the May We Rock event brought more clarification to this point. The music, for these metal-heads, seemed to embody a life of its own, espousing what one girl whose face resembled that of Morticia from the Addams family described as “beauty in darkness”. This imagery may seem depressing, abnormal and perhaps even a little weird but metal music is a discovery of beauty in distortion, in anger and terror, and in violence. “The point,” proclaims a website on Hessian studies, “is not to deconstruct, but to go through deconstruction and find meaning.” Hessian studies are the academic studies of metal, metal-heads as well as other adherents relating to heavy metal and grind core music. The Hessian studies website promotes the notions of finding beauty in ruins, in deconstruction, in death and in independent thought. That said, death and deconstruction are usually the furthest concepts on my mind when thinking of beauty. Independent thinking, however, is but a reasonably yet bleak demand in a culture whose encouragement of individuality is only contradicted by the fact that its members tend to conform in their quest for uniqueness and individual freedom.
Metal music is also about power and posters and advertisements for metal concerts often depict images of the bands and their lead singers as deities or in positions of power. Images taken fro below, showing a guitarist standing on stage holding up his guitar in the air, with his long hair streaming down his back and an expression of power on his face has now become so commonplace that even artists of less self-gratifying music are depicted in this way.
Getting metal-heads away from their dingy, dark holes they seem to inhabit until the rising of the moon was hardly a battle. In fact, I think that they have largely been inadequately judged as far as the notions of “I love darkness” goes. Metal-heads are clearly not all afraid to “come into the light” and on occasion have been spotted walking down a sunlit street, chains glinting brightly and eyes screwed up behind extremely dark shades. After Betray the Emissary’s album launch in March, I got the chance to interview Craig and Gavin, drummer and guitarist for the band respectively, for a second time. Meeting in broad daylight, in a quiet and secluded garden and away from any traces of the dark spaces and loud and raucous music of a club or bar, the guys seemed relaxed though a little out of place in the more meditative surroundings than where one would normally encounter them. Most music listeners would be familiar with Korn, a metal outfit from the States who have gone all-out commercial. Reminiscing on his early years of metal, Gavin feels a need to mention the band. “I grew up on Korn. It’s the reason why I’m into metal today but I don’t really like them anymore.” The mere reasoning for any mention of Korn at all is due to the fact that in their early music videos, the band managed to shock viewers with their blatant depiction of violent imagery—a fact that cannot be separated from the message of the metal subculture and, more importantly, from the field known as Hessian studies.
It seems that the platform of self-expression which metal had once cavorted on proudly now stands forlornly, desolate of ideas, watching popular culture slowly swallow up the last remnants of punk and other rock forms which have become commercialised over the past decade. Not that metal bands would not like the reception of their music to become more widespread, especially in South Africa. But the passion which these musicians display for a music they live and breath is far more important. “We hope that people who aren’t necessarily fans of metal will still enjoy our live performance and have a good time at our shows,” says Jay Thomson, bassist for the band Enmity. “We want our music to be catchy and enjoyable for people who aren’t necessarily metal fans but still retain its heavy sound.”
One thing that all South African metal bands have in common is their focus on sound quality, their aim in producing a music filled with creativity and of the highest standard. “We play what we think sounds cool,” is Craig’s response. Gavin adds that “it took a while to perfect our sound, to make the music a little bit more technical, more diversified.” With that said, metal music has definitely become more diversified on a general scale, with many of its melodies obsequiously retaining a catchier sound and its subculture entering into an age where the promotion of individuality itself has been converted into a franchise unto itself, separate from the commercial world.