Every metal fan's journey through the genre is generally the same. We all start with old school bands like Led Zeppelin, Van Halen, and ACDC then moved to Iron Maiden and from there discovered bands like Metallica, Motorhead (RIP Lemmy), Black Sabbath, and Slayer (RIP Kerry) and then it all snowballed from there.

We then each had our phases, whether it was metalcore (we all liked old Bring Me The Horizon at some point, just be honest with yourself), nu metal (come on, we all liked Slipknot a little bit), metalcore, post-hardcore, or whatever genre you liked we all had our moments that we look back on and reminisce.

For some of us, our phases weren't enough and kept growing. We kept searching for darker, more brutal rhythms, riffs, moving towards death metal, experimental death metal, symphonic death metal (there's a lot of sub-genres of death metal ok?), deathcore, and the untimely discovery of the rabbit hole that is black metal. We've all come a long way.

Outsiders may not understand it, as we're met with the condescending questions of, "Why do you like it? You can't even understand the lyrics" and "Are you a Satan worshipper?" but nonetheless we continue on.

Personally, I didn't like metal at first, but there was something addicting about the riffs, breakdowns, and (once you have an ear for it) the lyrics. I just kept coming back to it like there was something in it that I needed. It became a release of pent up aggression and discontent stemming from feelings others don't seem to understand or maybe we didn't even understand. We found our community. Even better, we found the meaning behind the screaming.

The great thing about metal music is all the sub-genres (yes all the confusing sub-genres) because there really is something for every metal fan to get into, even so, at the end of the day we're all one tight community of metalheads.

Stay metal my friends. \m/