The first time I went crowd surfing was heaven.
I love A Day to Remember. They really had that style down of doing heavy songs mixed with pop songs when nobody was doing that style of music.
You want to meet a bunch of really friendly people? Go to a Slayer concert. There'll be some real psychos there, but most of those people will take care of each other.
Metal fans have a connection. There is something there; just like the wrestling world, they are die hard about wrestling, and it's that passion that makes you enjoy what you do. That is why I go to metal shows; you watch these dudes on stage just shredding and letting loose. You can't help but love it.
Give metal a chance!
Hard rock for me is AC/DC, Def Leppard, Tesla, Kiss. Metal tends to be louder, ruder, darker, like Judas Priest, Slayer, Iron Maiden.
I remember performing on a punk stage with no mic in the middle of a mosh pit. My act was called "How to Be a Domestic Goddess."
Always been a big heavy metal fan. I remember being 15 saying, Dude I'm going to love heavy metal forever. Heavy metal til I'm 60. I'm 35 now. I think I'm going to give it one more year.
I played in a death-metal band. People either loved us or hated us. Or they thought we were OK.
Me being a skinny guy, I could crawl into the steel pit.
I discovered after going to music festivals that I am a rock fan. I love the guitars, the phrasing, and the abandon of rock fans.
I went to a heavy metal concert. The singer yelled out, "How many of you people feel like human beings tonight?" And then he said, "How many of you feel like animals?" The thing is, everyone cheered after the animals part, but I cheered after the human beings part because I did not know there was a second part to the question.
I said it's all good and it's all in fun Now get in the pit and try to love someone
I've come to see the mosh pit as an apt description of American society - and of my childhood home. I was number nine of ten creative, mostly loud kids competing for airspace.
Our album 'Show No Mercy' came out in late '83, and we did three or four shows in San Francisco after the release. That was our first experience with stage-divers, crowd-surfing, people walking on people across an entire crowd.
If I was to play any song for anybody asking, 'What is metal about?' I'd just play 'Master of Puppets.' The progressions and the bridge are brilliant.
We had no clue what heavy metal was. We were like: 'What's that?'
All of the punk-rock bands of the era would come in and play, and my job on Punk Rock Night was that I would go into the slam pit, and... I was 24 or 25, and I'd slam dance in the pit.
Our show is all about energy and all about the skill, so we never have to alter it for different audiences, although maybe we might get crazier at a punk-rock show. With kids moshing and crowd-surfing, we might have to get crazy as well.
Triple 6 Mafia and Mystikal in Atlanta was one of my first shows. I remember how sweaty and smashed up everybody was, and it was so punk rock.
The 'Black Album' was my real first introduction to Metallica. I was, like, 12 or 13 at the time. We were just getting into music, and I liked that album a lot, but it didn't necessarily change my life. But when I started picking up all the other Metallica records, 'Master of Puppets' was the one to me that stuck out with its songwriting.
I listened to Korn and Limp Bizkit and that whole era of heavy music.
We were at the dark end of the L.A. punk scene, and that scene was full-on and violent and aggressive and wild and intense.
Heavy metal drives me bonkers, it makes me want to vomit, heavy metal really is a pile of puke.
I really love going to shows where I'm sandwiched between people, and you don't know if the sweat on you is yours or the person's next to you.
