Blitzkrieg #7: Metal vs. Religion

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, metal gave me the strength to accept my budding Atheism during my youth.  I wish I could say there was some epiphanic moment that came late one night while listening to Reign in Blood, but the truth is that metal’s part in the formation of my beliefs was much more subtle.  Reflecting back on those times, I’ve come to realize that my Atheism manifested itself long before my love of metal did, and that metal only helped to cement those beliefs.

I went to Catholic school from kindergarten all the way up through my senior year of high school.  A lot of people still have some interesting ideas of what Catholic school is like, but I can assure you there were no draconian nuns in black lording over us with yardsticks and paddles, nor were we forced to go to church every day.  That doesn’t mean that the presence of the almighty didn’t loom over us on a daily basis.  We did have an extra period for religion class,  and although we didn’t go to church every day, there were still multiple opportunities to kneel before the saviour, any excuse to have a mass in the gymnasium or set up confessionals in the auditorium.

I tried my damnedest to believe.  I folded my hands, closed my eyes, drank the grape juice, ate the stale crackers (why does the body of Christ taste like cardboard and glue?), and none of it worked.  I participated willingly in the three c’s, communion, confirmation and confession, but felt no closer to any “God”.  For the longest time, I felt like there was something wrong with me, like I was the only one in the world that didn’t believe.  There was nothing I could do about it, no one I was comfortable talking to.  If there were others like me, they were keeping it well hidden.

I Was A Teenage Metalhead.

Okay, so a couple of folks have asked me to write something about how I got into heavy metal. Well, let me start by saying it wasn’t easy to do, being trapped in the bowels of the Midwest. Furthermore I’m only 30, which means I was way too young to get caught up in the ’80s glory days of tape trading (I was 8 years old when Nihilist released their first demo, about 4 when Death released theirs) and too old to have had the internet readily available to me at a young age (we did however, have some sweet Apple computers at school that you could play Oregon Trail on). There were very few outlets for discovering metal available to someone growing up when and where I did. I think it started with classic rock. It might not have been easy to catch an underground metal show in central Iowa, but it was easy to turn on the radio and hear Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Thin Lizzy, Steppenwolf, Kiss, etc… the building blocks of heavy metal. I always gravitated towards the heavier side of classic rock, so metal was a natural progression.

And I discovered metal through MTV. This might sound like a completely ridiculous notion now, but back then MTV actually had something to do with music and didn’t constantly show programs about knocked up trailer park dwellers, morbidly obese high schoolers who want to be dancers and cheerleaders only to fail miserably, and more sexually confused 20-somethings than you can shake a stick at (take that how you will). It was Metallica’s video for “One” that hit me like a sledgehammer to the skull. I caught it while randomly flipping channels one day after school. It was one of those moments of “This is the music I’ve been waiting my whole life to hear.”. The dynamics, the guitar tone, the machine-gun drums, everything about that song was perfect. It blew all the hair metal MTV had been playing at the time out of the water. Metallica weren’t a bunch of preening tarts like Poison, they were genuine bad asses with a dark, heavy sound that matched their black-clad image. Of course, it was all downhill from there…