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KICK OUT THE JAMS: PROTO METAL, 1964â1970
Heavy metal was never officially âborn.â It came together in bits and pieces between the mid-sixties and early seventies, and stemmed from a desire to rebel, shock, and create a level of intensity that did not then exist in pop music.
Strangely, it was British Invasion band the Kinks that captured the earliest sound of metal in 1964 with their third single âYou Really Got Me.â The band played blunt, repetitive power-chord guitar riffs that they coupled with a primitive style of distortionâguitarist Dave Davies, taking a cue from surf guitarist Link Wray, used a razor blade to cut slits in his speaker cone to achieve the sound. From there, technological improvements allowed guitarists to use effect pedals to make their instruments buzz like swarming bees, or spiral as if caught in the eye of a tornado.
With louder amps, crazier effects, and plenty of social and political turmoil to inspire them, artists like Jimi Hendrix and bands like Hawkwind, Led Zeppelin, MC5, Blue Cheer, the Stooges, and, of course, Black Sabbath set out to change peopleâs perceptions of just how heavy music could be and what was possible with a bit of creativity and a lot of volume.
Flamboyant Seattle-born musician Jimi Hendrix developed some of the most inventive early uses for the distortion box, contorting traditional electric blues into flailing, contentious torrents of sound. That he was just as adept at performing beautiful emotional and psychedelic rock songs is a testament to his brilliance as a musician. Tragically, Hendrix died in 1970 at age twenty-seven after consuming sleeping pills and red wine and asphyxiating on his vomit. Yet in four short years he redefined the rock lexicon with three astonishing albumsâ1967âs Are You Experienced and Axis: Bold as Love, and 1968âs Electric Ladyland.
As difficult as it is to define heavy metal, itâs even harder to pinpoint the band that started it all. Some cite Led Zeppelin, the eclectic, majestic group that formed out of the collapse of the Yardbirds. The band featured seasoned session musician and Yardbirds alum Jimmy Page, bassist John Paul Jones, vocalist Robert Plant, and his Band of Joy bandmate John Bonham, a forceful, stylistic drummer whose beats were often a hair behind the rest of the rhythm, giving the music a perpetually lunging feel. Although none of the members of Zeppelin ever called their music metal, they had a major influence on countless metal bands, including Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Deep Purple.
The influence of Led Zeppelin on hard rock and metal is unparalleled (just listen to early Judas Priest, Whitesnake, Guns Nâ Roses, Soundgarden, and Janeâs Addiction). But there are a number of unsung (at least in metal circles) American bands that also took volume and rage to new heightsâespecially Detroitâs Motor City Five (better known as MC5), the Stooges, and San Franciscoâs Blue Cheer, all of whom performed with frenetic energy and brazen sexuality that defined the otherness of the counterculture.
He never created an album thatâs entirely or characteristically metal, yet Alice Cooper is essential to the look and mood of the genre. Vincent Damon Furnier dubbed his band Alice Cooper in 1968 and soon after conceived a mesmerizing theatrical stage show that was equal parts Hammer horror film and French Grand Guignol. He allegedly came up with the âAliceâ moniker after using a Ouija board to communicate with a seventeenth-century witch of the same name; he changed his legal name to Alice Cooper in 1974. Hendrix may have electrified the flower child, but as Alice says, âI drove a stake through the heart of the love generation.â At the same time, other gender-bending frontmenâsuch as David Bowie and hell-and-hair-fire man Arthur Brownâimpacted the antics of future stars, including Marilyn Manson and the members of Mötley CrĂŒe.