You can't really tell by my short and spiffy new haircut, but at heart I'm a die-hard metalhead headbanger who is in love with music that makes most people cringe with fear and/or disgust. So, while my new look says otherwise, I'd like for you all to think that the long, Christ-like tresses are implied. Also, imagine me decked out from head to toe in black leather and spikes if the image doesn't cause any undue gagging.
It all started not as a jaded high schooler, or even a bullied middle schooler when most metal kids pick up the music. It started when I was a happy little kid, believe it or not. I will admit that my fanaticism for the genre didn't come out until I was that bullied middle schooler I mentioned, but the roots go back to when I was merely seven, maybe eight years old. My earliest memories actually consist of heavy metal imagery. I'll never forget that one time when I was at a swap meet with my parents as a small child where I saw a box of vinyl for sale, and the record in the front was none other than Iron Maiden's classic Killers album, which some would say is the greatest heavy metal album cover of all time. I had in front of me the intimidating depiction of a long-haired zombie with his teeth clenched in anger holding a bloody axe of death as his victim grabs at him from below in a futile attempt to fight back, but he's doomed. Need I say more? I had no idea what the music sounded like, I just assumed it was rock of some sort. I didn't have the music to back it up, but that titular image at the swap meet that day has stayed with me ever since then and I give credit to that image for getting the ball rolling in my development as a metalhead.
I'd think about the image when nothing else was going on around me. It would fill up the empty space with its visceral nature; why is the zombie so mad? Is he an evil man? Why did he kill that guy? It's scary, but why do I keep thinking about it? I didn't have the music to back up such scary imagery until I was about eight years old when I was exposed to another striking image: the album cover you see at the top of this page, Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance.
On the back of the album sleeve was a short poem that my dad read to me...
From an unknown land and through distant skies came a winged warrior. Nothing remained sacred, no one was safe from the Hellion as it uttered its battle cry...Screaming for VengeanceI had to hear it, plain and simple. He placed the disc on the turntable as I stood stiff with excitement. He dropped the needle on the outside groove, and then, BLAST OFF.
The opening track is an intro called "The Hellion", named after the beast seen on the album cover and referenced in the poem. It's anthemic, to say the least, apocalyptic at most. It makes you want to go outside and look up into the sky to wait for the fiery meteors to come down to earth and put us all to a fiery death, but you feel ready to die. After the opening salvo ends, the next track, "Electric Eye" drops like a bomb. If "The Hellion" makes you feel like the meteors are falling, "Electric Eye" is the soundtrack to the impact. One of two lead guitarists Glenn Tipton rips on an epic solo in the middle of the song, showing off his technical and precise playing as opposed to other guitarist KK Downing's more outlandish style. This music was simply the greatest sound I've ever heard up to that point.
I'll stop myself here, though, because this isn't meant to be a review of the album. In fact, I didn't get to hear the rest of the album in its entirety until I was in middle school. At that point, my dad bought me a CD player, and much to my excitement I found that he had a CD copy of Screaming for Vengeance which I rocked over and over for an entire week, and it was then that I became serious about all this heavy metal ridiculousness, and here I am today in all my nerdy, maladjusted glory.
It wasn't the only metal/hard rock album that was part of this development, however. Sonic Temple by The Cult was my album of choice years before hearing the entirety of Screaming for Vengeance, and I'd even say that Sonic Temple is a better album! Another album I remember was, in fact, another Judas Priest album called Hellbent for Leather, so even though I will admit that Sonic Temple is somewhat superior to Vengeance musically, it was Vengeance that not only gave me great music, but it gave me an identity as well. I got made fun of so much for liking metal, it was awful, but it was my belief that the music was better than all of those ignorant people who thought nothing of the it and really didn't know what they were talking about. The truth is, metal music and it's collective fan base is so immeasurably huge and powerful that anyone who talks down to it in so insignificant in comparison that no one should feel insulted by them and they should be brushed off entirely. That's what Screaming for Vengeance gave me, a sense of power over all the people who belittled me. Judas Priest is an example of a band that was obsessed with power, and on Vengeance they harnessed it and converted it into musical form almost flawlessly. My message to all of you is that you should make it a goal to find something in your life that gives you that kind of power, or rather, the feeling of power over the obstacles that are holding you back from maximizing who you are. If you're like me, you didn't find metal, metal found YOU, and if that is how you identify yourself then you better find some contentment in it or else you're going turn out to be the most miserable person in the world this side of Van Gogh, because metalheads are disrespected and spit upon by their peers, I know, because that was me. Judas Priest gave me listening enjoyment on a whole other level, but with that came adversity from my classmates who constantly laughed at my unabashed metal identity. It's all up to you how you shape your life around that identity, that way you can find fulfillment and happiness. It took me years to finally realize the power I had with this music rather than think of myself as a loser outcast and the self-despising nature that comes with it. When you're smart, and when you reject dumbed-down popular culture and go your own way, that's when no one can stop you. Falling in love with Judas Priest and heavy metal started me down that path, and I stayed above the fray the whole time while all my peers were hopping from trend to trend and practically killing themselves trying to be accepted by people who were never going to do shit for them in the first place.
To this day, I rock this album every once in a while and bang my head a bit like old times. While I have since found several metal albums that I like more than Vengeance, I will never forget where I started, because I wouldn't be nearly the same today if it wasn't for the Hellion and its battle cry. \m/
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