Thoughts On The Politics Of Metal

Only an idiot would think the genre is fundamentally about the ‘oppressed’

Metallica’s James Hetfield made news last week after criticizing performers who deliver political messages at shows. “I just gotta say, Metallica is not here, like some other entertainers, to influence you with their bullshit, OK?” Hetfield told an appreciative Las Vegas crowd.

This benign comment drew equal amounts of support and criticism. The critics allege that all art is political and it’s imperative for entertainers to speak out on injustice. Some of outraged argued that metal itself is political, with one academic claiming the genre is about “speaking to the marginalized, speaking truth to power, liberation.”

In other words, metal is inherently left-wing.

It’s necessary to set the record straight on the actual politics of metal. Metal isn’t inherently left or right-wing–it’s traditionally apolitical. Over the last two decades, Antifa music journalists and Redditors have tried to make the genre more politically correct to suit their interests. They’ve pushed some big artists to make libtarded statements and promoted explicitly left-wing bands. In spite of all these efforts, these journos haven’t changed metal’s nature.

It’s not productive to treat art like a Stalinist commissar and put everything in clear political categories. That’s not how art works. Obviously, some art is explicitly political, something metal rarely is. But if one were forced to place it on a political compass, metal would clearly lean right. Its rebellious themes and tendency to denounce religion would not make metal traditionally conservative. But it’s ultimately a style centered on fantasy (a literary genre long-associated with the right) and extols masculinity. It’s overwhelmingly white. Western history and mythology serve as major lyrical inspirations. One could even say it’s a heroic style as it imagines the world as a grim place where you must fight to survive. That’s a worldview shared by many right-wingers. Like the best right-wing art, it puts the art first, not politics. Even the few openly right-wing metal bands don’t write about politics. Their views come through their songs on history and fantasy.

It’s not quite accurate to say metal is right-wing, but it’s more accurate than leftists trying to claim it as their own. A largely apolitical genre primarily centered on myth and violent masculinity isn’t a left-wing thing.

Here’s a brief history lesson on metal. Metal was invented by Black Sabbath. Other rock bands influenced the genre, but Sabbath created it. Sabbath had a few political songs, such as the anti-war anthem “War Pigs.” But most of their songs were about personal struggles, drugs, damnation, and horror. With Ronnie James Dio as singer, fantasy became the primary lyrical theme. Sabbath had a much darker view of the world than their peers. They weren’t celebrating parties, girls, or taking it easy. They wrote a lot more about love and relationships than their successors in the genre, but far less about this topic than their peers.

The next generation of metal would follow in Sabbath’s footsteps, but focus even more on fantasy. Bands that aimed for radio play, such as Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard, were an exception. But most of the genre differentiated itself by not singing or shouting about their breakups. Iron Maiden has several songs dedicated to various moments in history along with material based on literature and mythology. Other bands, such as Venom and Mercyful Fate, fixated on the occult and horror. Thrash metal bands added general violence as a primary theme, which could range from songs about getting eaten by piranhas to rampaging metal militias.

Lyrics aside, metal music wasn’t made for the sensitive. It was loud, fast, aggressive, and full of testosterone. It also began stripping away rock’s blues roots, making it a “whiter” genre. (Various forms of electronic music and alternative rock were also dropping the blues, but in a different manner from metal.) The Religious Right was eager to ban heavy metal, but it wasn’t because they felt it was leftist. The preachers claimed the music was indecent and possibly Satanic.

There was another genre emerging in the 70s and 80s that also featured angry white guys playing loud and fast music. Punk and metal have similarities and there’s been plenty of cross-pollination between both genres. But punks traditionally took a dim view of metal. As one can read in old interviews and books such as American Hardcore, punks saw metal as backward and reactionary. The genre’s lack of politics was a mark against it. It’s a point repeated throughout this documentary on grindcore. Grindcore artists lambast metal guys for focusing solely on the music while they claim punks care more about the politics. (This is a curious position for grindcore-ers to take when their growled vocals make the lyrics indecipherable.)

Punk and hardcore had a huge influence on metal. Many subgenres would not exist without that influence. For a number of bands, punk didn’t just shape their music–it also shaped their lyrics. As the 80s progressed, most thrash bands ditched songs about metal, the joy of violence, and the occult to shout about social and political issues. The usual political message of thrash songs amounted to “the world is messed up” and “the government sucks.” Many political persuasions agree with these statements. A number of popular thrash bands–such as Megadeth, Slayer, and Overkill–included vocal conservatives as members. It’s likely James Hetfield himself is a conservative. But there were bands who intended for their music to be explicitly left-wing. Kreator, Sacred Reich, Nuclear Assault, Anthrax, and Sepultura are some prominent examples. This political tendency would be carried on by later acts, particularly within metalcore and a few death metal bands.

But most subgenres eschewed politics in favor of the typical metal topics. It’s hard to see death metal, black metal, power metal, and doom metal as protest genres. Politics has always remained a marginal focus in the genre. Napalm Death is an outlier, not the norm.

There was a brief period in the early 90s when a number of major metal bands made right-wing public statements. Pantera, Slayer, Danzig, Type O Negative, and Morbid Angel all had controversies for being politically incorrect about race. It would make this article extremely long to explain each situation, so I’ll just focus on Pantera. They were arguably the biggest metal band of the early 90s after Metallica. Pantera were proud southerners who loved Confederate imagery and presenting themselves as hillbillies. Their lyrics had little to do with politics outside of hating the media. But their frontman Phil Anselmo was a forerunner of rock artists delivering political diatribes on stage, but his speeches were very different from the Trump bashing of today.

Anselmo once gave a speech attacking rap “pissing all over white culture,” how blacks seem to be okay with killing whites, how Pantera’s music is a white thing, and how whites should have pride in who they are.

The “white pride” trend seemed to die with the advent of nu-metal. That shouldn’t be surprising as nu-metal was a “multicultural” version of metal.

These controversies shouldn’t be taken as evidence that metal was explicitly right-wing. The public statements had little to do with the lyrics and focus of such bands. Pantera, Slayer, and Morbid Angel were not the right-wing version of crust punk bands that put their politics first. These artists just occasionally expressed their personal views on stage, in interviews, and occasionally in a few songs. You can listen to these bands and never be aware they leaned politically. In contrast, lefty metal bands and punk acts typically make their politics integral to the music. You have to be pretty dense to not get the point of Crass.

Right-wing acts still stick to the music. This is especially true in that notorious subgenre known as “National Socialist Black Metal” (NSBM). This is a label very few artists embrace. Many bands lumped into it insist they’re not Nazis or not even political. Burzum, the most popular “NSBM” artist, has zero political lyrics; the label owes entirely to Varg Vikernes’s personal statements outside of his music. NSBM and regular black metal typically have the same lyrical themes. Both deal with dark fantasy, hostility to Christianity, ancient mythology, and forbidding landscapes. But in NSBM there are hardly any references to Satan, more allusions to Wotan, less suicidal ideation, and a greater chance the screamed lyrics are about the glories of whiteness. You’re not going to get songs about why we need less immigration, how a certain political leader sucks, or anything dealing with current affairs. NSBM resides in the land of myth as much as ordinary black metal. This is not a genre ideal for protest songs, with its shrieking vocals, lo-fi production, and gloomy atmosphere. Even if its political variant isn’t anywhere near as political as anarcho-punk.

To reiterate, it’s inaccurate to think of metal as inherently right-wing. But it’s certainly not left-wing either.

It can stand as a model for the type of culture right-wingers should celebrate and try to create. It eschews the mundanity of ordinary life for a world of myth and legend. A lot of those myths and legends aren’t so nice. I’m not sure the Right would like the nightmarish world conjured up by Autopsy and Cannibal Corpse. But the world we live in isn’t so fair and decent. It’s a dark world that usually doesn’t care about you. That’s not a reason to give up and surrender; it’s motivation to continue the fight for survival.

Call it Nietzschean if you will.

Propaganda makes for terrible art. No one wants to listen to a crappy diatribe pretending to be a song. They want to listen to music that moves them, regardless of its intended message.

If right-wingers wish to appreciate or even create art in line with their values and aspirations, metal offers a good model. It doesn’t concern itself with the news of the day or campaign issues. It’s not whiny protest music or offering the peace pipe to the whole world. It’s a genre that puts the music first. Everything else, including the right-coded themes, is secondary.

It’s one of the many reasons why metal rules.

Order Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.