I have studied and appreciated music since I was a kid. I grew up on country, classic rock and classical music. I pride myself on my musical collection, which includes such jazz legends as Miles Davis, Wynton Marsalis, Sonny Rollins and Art Blakey, and such classical immortals as Johannes Brahms, Camille Saint-Saens, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, W.A. Mozart, Edvard Grieg and William Byrd. I’m a total snob about my musical tastes.

That being said… good lord do I absolutely love metal.

I remember when I was a kid, in the midst of studying trumpet concertos and jazz standards, my mother walked into my room with a look of horror upon her face. I was blasting Sepultura. She slapped her forehead and said, “How can you listen to this crap?”

For me, metal is a primal release. It is angry for me when I cannot afford to be. It lashes out things I do not have the courage to scream at. It speaks to the dark side of me that I have to indulge every so often to keep it well-fed and content. And if you can get your hands on some really smart metal, their music is just as cerebrally stimulating as anything Brahms or Miles Davis composed. It’s just much harder on the ears.

But I am also old-fashioned when it comes to my metal. I can’t get behind most of this weepy, neutered stuff today that you’re supposed to listen to while you’re crying in the rain with your guyliner running down your face. 

When my metal is sad, it’s because your entire viking clan was wiped out by invaders and now you must swear bloody revenge. Or it’s because mankind did not heed the warning of the ancient prophecy and now Satan walks the burning earth. Aah, yeah, that’s the stuff.

In my musical collection Blind Guardian is seated right next to Brahms, Sepultura chills out next to Sonny Rollins, and maybe Miles Davis will eventually rock out with Mastodon. In the meantime I will blast Dimmu Borgir until my ears bleed when I need to escape into an angry world of misery, Satan and death… because it just helps me feel so relaxed afterwards.