1- The word “Heavy Metal” was first used in Steppenwolf’s 1968 song “Born To Be Wild” lyrics. This very song which was in the first album of the band named after them was used in the soundtrack of the legendary movie “Easy Rider”. With this movie, the lyrics reached many people. And afterward, became the name of this music genre.
2- In 1981, Ozzy Osbourne in the press conference for his first album in his solo career cut off the head of a live pigeon with his teeth. Therefore banned from entering the building of the record company CBS.
3- The star and the crescent in Kirk Hammett’s guitar is a symbol of Ouija 4.
4- Metallica’s first album in 1983 was originally named “Metal Up Your Ass. Easter’s Cancelled: The Body’s Been Found”. However, due to the objections of the distributing company, it was changed to “Kill’Em All”.
5- The starting point of Heavy Metal is the British working class. After their shift in the factory, workers were gathering around in pubs and created their own music by forming small local bands. Because most of them were heavy industry workers, spiked wristbands and belts became the inseparable accessories of this culture.
6- The first known Heavy Metal band is Black Sabbath. Its members were mostly factory workers. Some other sources accept Led Zeppelin as the first one but because of the blues characteristics in their soundtracks, it would be wrong to say that they create pure Heavy Metal music.
7- Led Zeppelin’s 1971 ‘Stairway To Heaven’ song is the only song that entered the lists without being released as a single. Also, though it lasts 9 minutes, it is the most played song of all time on American radio.
8-With its 22 million sales, Led Zeppelin’s most wanted 4th album “IV” cover doesn’t have any writing including the name of the band and the name of the album.
9-The reason for Heavy Metal fans to grow their hair, have an interest in motorcycles, and wearing leather jackets is partially about the Easy Rider movie which depicts a lifestyle without rules. This movie has a huge impact on the philosophy and the style of heavy metal fans.
10- The most selling Hard Rock album belongs to Austrian AC/DC. The first album, 1980 “Back In Black”, which the band recorded with their new lead singer Brian Johnson sold 50 million copies all around the world.
11- December 8, 2004, is accepted as a dark day for metal music lovers. On that day, Dimebag Darrell, an old member of Pantera, and his drummer brother Vinnie Paul were having a concert with their band Damageplan on a tour in Alrosa Villa Bar in Ohio. When the band started their first song, the audience was full of excitement. But the things that will happen shortly afterward were so tragic that it will create a bloody page for the book of glorious music history. Halfway through the first song, 25-year-old Nathan jumped onto the stage and came next to guitarist Dimebag Darrell and said something in a strong tone. Everyone assumed he was just an excited fan but then he took his gun and killed Darrel with 16 shots. Nathan Gale also shot people who were trying to escape. He killed another three people and he was only stopped by being shot to death by the police. Dimebag was buried in a coffin in his favorite band Kiss.
12- The story of the name of the Finnish band, Children Of Bodom, is very interesting. On June 4, 1960, they went near Bodom lake for camping as two men (Seppo and Nils) and two women (Maili and Anja). One morning, three dead were found. Nils was the surviving one. The other three were stabbed to death. The police questioned 3000 people including 70 suspects. But they cannot find the murderer.
13- In 2004, police arrested Nils but had to release her because of insufficient evidence. These murders are considered as one of the darkest events in Finland. Alexi Laiho is a neighbor of one of the families of the dead. He names his band Children of Bodom because he grew up hearing this incident. Alexi still believes that the killer is Nils.
14- The lead singer of Judas Priest, Rob Halford left the band, and then he declared that he is gay and then the great Judas Priest fan Tim Owens entered the band. These events inspired producers and they started to shoot a film called “Metal God” in 2000. The leading actors were Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. But Judas Priest told them that he will sue them so they changed the name to “Rockstar” and they also made small changes in the script. In the movie, the Judas Priest inspired band is called Steel Dragon. And the members are; in vocal Jeff Scott Soto (Yngwie Malmsteen’s Rising Force) and Mike Matijevic (Steelheart), in guitars Zakk Wylde (Osbourne, Black Label Society) and Nick Cantonese (Black Label Society), in bass guitar Jeff Pilson (Dokken, Dio) and the drums Jason Bonham.
15- The world’s fastest guitarist is accepted as Swedish Yngwie J. Malmsteen. No one can reach his pace by pushing the notes exactly and correctly.
16- The first name that entered the Guinness Records in “The World’s Most Loud Band” is Deep Purple. Then Motörhead beat the record and finally, this record was beaten by Manowar. (In their Hannover, Germany concert with 129,5 decibel)
17- One of the first members of the band Pentagram was Ümit Yılbar. He was killed in 1993 during his military service in Southeast. The song Fly Forever was written for him.
18- The lead singer of the Norwegian black metal band Mayhem which took its name from Venom’s “Mayhem with Mercy” killed himself with a shotgun on April 12, 1991. Euronymous took the picture of Dead’s smashed brain. This photograph was used on the bootleg album cover of “Dawn of the Blackhearts”.
19- Slayer 1998 album name “Diabolus In Musica” is a Latin musical term. In the Medieval Era, an internal of 3 whole tones (tritone) was considered to have a diabolical sound and it was called “Diabolus in Musica”. Tritone has been used frequently in Baroque music and heavy metal.
20- The “Horned Hand” greeting was first used by Ronnie James Dio. Italians use this gesture for good luck. Dia was also Italian and learned this from his grandmother. On December 22, 1987, the bassist of Mötley Crüe Nikki Sixx died “for some time”. Sixx was with Slash from Guns N’Roses and Steven Adler in a hotel room. On that day, he took heroin, cocaine, valium, and a bottle of Jack Daniels. After a while, he went into a coma and his heart stopped. Immediately an ambulance is called electroshock and an adrenaline needle was injected into his heart.
21- Sixx remained dead for 2 minutes and he returned to life after the needle and vomited. After this incident, all Mötley Crüe members stopped using heavy drugs. If you turn the logo of Dio (God) upside down, you will see the word, Devil.
22- On September 24, 1980, Led Zeppelin’s drummer John Bonham vomited all night for excessive alcohol and he died suffocating in his vomit. On December 4, 1980, the members of the band declared that without John Bonham they can’t be Led Zeppelin and that band fell apart. Jimmy Page didn’t touch the guitar for three years. Bonham was 32 years old when he died.
23- At Sonisphere İstanbul, 1100 barrel beer was consumed in 3 days. One barrel consists of 50 cl 100 cups and each is 7 Turkish Lira. In total, 800 thousand Turkish Lira worth of beer was consumed.
24- America’s one of the long-established thrash bands Pantera’s first album was known as “Cowboys From Hell”. In fact, the band has the previous four albums in which they make glam metal. “Metal Magic” (1983), “Projects In The Jungle” (1984), and “I Am The Nİght” (1985) were recorded by the vocalist Terry Glaze. On the other hand, 1988 “Power Metal” was recorded with vocalist Phil Anselmo and it is their last glam metal album. Pantera mentions these four albums on their website under the name “Panterrible”.
25- When the radios and TVs were closed to Heavy Metal, the best way to reach the audience was to create distinctive and memorable images. Iron Maiden’s mascot Eddie which was created by Derek Riggs for album covers and t-shirts was in regular size in their first two albums. And the first drawing of him had red hair due to the punk madness in England. Then he became a corpse and then a giant with their “Number Of The Beast” album.
26- One of the best songs of Black Sabbath that characterizes my identity is “Paranoid”. It was the last song of their 1970 first album. They needed a short song and when they took a break from their studio work, they sat at a bar and the riffs of the song written by Tony Iommi and its lyrics written by bassist Geezer Butler. First, they decided to call it “War Pigs” then they changed it to the album name “Paranoid”.
27- Heavy Metal’s one of the best concert albums was created by Motörhead. The 1981 “No Sleep’Til Hammersmith” album was recorded on March 23, 1981 Queens Hall in Leeds. The first known thrash metal band is Exodus. However, Metallica released their first album before Exodus and therefore they became the first one in the records the first thrash album in the records belongs to Metallica. Before Iron Maiden released their first album the drummer masked Thunderstick played with them, then at the beginning of 1979, he went to another NWOBHM band, Samson. When he was playing with Iron Maiden in rehearsals they also played the song “Ides Of March” which will become the opening song of the album “Killers”.
28- Thunderstick presented this song to Samson’s lead guitarist as if it is his song. And Samson published this song in the “Head On” album under the name of “Thunderburst”. At the time being, Samsons lead singer was Bruce Dickinson who will be a part of Iron Maiden later on. Music lovers are surprised a lot when they hear the same song from the albums of different brands under the name of different composers.
29- The US Government gifted Mötley Crüe a NASA-made drum that rotates around its own axis in return for giving speeches about avoiding drugs to young people. This drum was first used in the “Girls, Girls, Girls” album tour.
30- A Rolling Stone correspondent Cameron Crowe went on a tour with Led Zeppelin in the mid-’70s. He turned some of it into a scenario and used it in his movie “Almost Famous”.
31- In the mid-’80s an interesting band occurred in Germany: Mekong Delta. Because each was playing in some other bands and each had binding contracts to the record companies they never mentioned their name and they never gave any picture or concert. Their musical adventure took a decade starting in 1987 with their “Mekong Delta” album. In 1990 with their album “Dances Of Death” they declared their names.
32- Among the people who played in that band also has famous names like Peavey (Rage), Jörg Michael (Running Wild, Stratovarius, Grave Digger, Rage, Saxon), Peter Haas (Krokus, Poltergeist), Frank Fricke (living Death), Reiner Kelch (Living Death) and Uli Kusch (Helloween, Masterplan, Gamma Ray, Holy Moses, Sinner).
33- American band Warrant released their “Dog Eat Dog” album in 1992. After one year later with their unnecessary resentment the band “Dog Eat Dog” released an EP called “Warrant”.
34- Jim Carrey is seen playing the Cannibal Corpse’s “Hammer Smashed Face” song in a bar scene of the “Ace Ventura” film.
35- The musicians played in Whitesnake’s 1987 album “Whitesnake” are actually different from the ones they went on the tour with. In the tour, there were guitarist John Sykes, bass guitarist Neil Murray, drummer Aynsley Dunbar and session guitarist Adrian Vanderberg which were also in the album, and on the clips, there were guitarist Vivian Campbell, bass guitarist Rudy Sarzo, drummer Tommy Aldridge and permanent guitarist Adrian Vandenberg. The only steady musician in the band was Deep Purple’s vocalist David Coverdale.
36- Slayer’s 1986 “Reign In Blood” IS ACCEPTED as the best thrash album of all time.
37- The term “Death Metal” was first used as a song name in 1985 in Possessed’s “Seven Churches” album.
38- The term “Black Metal” was first used as the name of the song that has given its name to the 1982 album of British band Venom
39- The most privileged guitarist in the world of rock Eddie Van Halen is the creator of the tapping technique. The guitarist uses both hands on the guitar’s fretboard. This technique can easily be noticed in the band’s “Eruption” song.
40- Before the album, the producer of “Hysteria” album Mutt Lange, told everyone that “if Michael Jackson can have 7 hits on his “Thriller” album, so can a rock group should achieve that”. And indeed, “Hysteria” sent 7 hits to the top ten of the lists in two years
41- Before the British band, Def Leppard started recording their “Hysteria” album the drummer of the band Rick Allen had a traffic accident and lost his left arm. Instead of finding a new drummer, the group designed a new drum that Allen can play. The 1987 album of the group in which Rick Allen only played with his left arm, became the band’s most selling album.
42- At the beginning of the ’80s PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) was formed by Nancy Reagan the wife of President Ronald Reagan. The band was established to protect the youth from harmful lyrics and album covers. Because of the laws that were passed by this organization, many songs were banned from radio and TV. Frank Zappa was also among the ones that were sued by PMRC. In the courts, he said that “the ones that bring bad laws are more dangerous than the ones who have bad lyrics.”
43- Though the expansion of the name W.A.S.P created many rumors, the official statement of the band Blackie Lawless is “We Are Sexual Perverts”.
44- The 1984 movie “This is Spinal Tap” is a movie directed by Rob Reiner and it mocks with each cliche in the 80’s hard rock and heavy metal world and it tells the story of the band Spinal Tap. The ones who were marketing it told everyone that it is actually a documentary and it tells the real story of a legendary band Spinal Tap and everyone believed them. Whereas it was just a scheme to have successful marketing. Sadly, there are still people out there that Spinal Tap is a real band.
45- The guitarist Dave Mustaine, who was one of the first members of Metallica created the band Megadeth when he was fired from Metallica. Slayer’s guitarist Kerry King was also in Megadeth at the beginning.
46- In 1982 Ozzy went on a “Diary Of A Madman” tour with Quiet Riot. Someone threw him a bat in the Iowa concert. Ozzy thought that the bat was made of plastic and cut off his head with his teeth. When it was realized that the bat was real, he was hospitalized against the danger of rabies. The first person to visit him was his manager and future wife Sharon Arden.
47- The New York band Manowar, released its 1982 first album with “Battle Hymns” with Liberty Records label. The band signed a contract with Music For Nation’s sub-company Megaforce the same year for their other albums. They made the contract before their album “Into The Glory Ride” and they signed it with their own blood.
48- The name of the legendary band Judas Priest comes from Bob Dylan’s “The Ballad of Frankie Lee & Judas Priest” song.
