ROCK BANDS AND THE MEANINGS OF THEIR NAMES
Anthrax Danzing DIO
Exodus Grim Reaper Helloween
Eternal Death Iron Maiden King Diamond
Megadeath Metal Church Metallica
Slayer
MISCELLANEOUS BANDS
Celtc Frost Sam Hain
Sodom Possessed
Satan
Although the above list is somewhat numerous, it is by no means exhaustive.
The background for each of the above bands is listed below.
ANTHRAX: Anthrax named itself after a deadly disease, admitting they don't
like things that are "safe and pretty." Youngsters yearning for profanity
listen to songs like, "I'M THE MAN." During concerts, lead singer Joey
Bellandonna shouts obscenities to the audience, who scream them back. On their
album, "STATE of EUPHORIA", Anthrax also seems to metaphorically mandate
vengeful murder in a spiteful song called, "MISERY LOVES COMPANY," which ends
with the line "I'LL KILL YOU".
DANZING: Glenn Danzing, formerly with the Misfits, is a heavy metal hero of
the eighties. He collects Japanese monster toys and sings about Satan. The
cover of his latest LP, entitled, "DANZING", depicts a goat's skull, the
symbol of satanic allegiance. Grisly songs on the album applaud a god of
deceit and darkness. The lyrics to, "TWIST OF CAIN" relate how Satan fathered
Cain, enabling him to commit the first murder. In another song,"EVIL THING,"
Danzing describes how anger keeps him alive in his private hell as a demon-
man. During a recent MTV interview, Glenn Danzing commented that it was
acceptable because it represents human nature. Man, he said, should
acknowledge his good and evil aspects and not be upset at his failures.
Danzing's own ethical dichotomy is apparent in such songs as "AM I DEMON," in
which he askes, "AM I BEAST OR HUMAN?"
DIO: Ronnie James Dio claims to have originated the so-called two-fingered
salute so popular at rock concerts. His imagry ratifies his claim. The cover
of his album "DREAM EVIL" depicts a child asleep on a bed. Satan peers through
a window above her, flashing the satanic salute. From under the bed crawl
creepy slithering snakes. In "ALL THE FOOLS SAILED AWAY", he sings, "WE ARE
DAMNED...WE ARE CAUGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE LION AND THE LAMB...WE TEACH YOU
TO SIN." Dio's album "HOLY DIVER" depicts a helpless, drowning minister,
overcome by a horned and cloven-footed devil. BLKBANDS
EXODUS: Their album "FABULOUS DISASTER" is named after film character
Malcolm McLaren's assessment of the Sex Pistol's Sid Vicious in the movie "Sid
and Nancy". Vocalist Steve Souza says FABULOUS DISASTER intends to emphasize
rawness and violence, epitomized by songs such as "BONDED by BLOOD," and,
"PLEASURES of the FLESH". FABULOUS DISASTER includes an ode to a bloody three-
day New Mexico prison riot in 1980. Souza calls "OPEN SEASON" a song about a
psychopathic stalker who butchers a baby-faced foe, "friendly, violent fun."
Exodus accommodates fans who crave ferocity and a headbanging beat with
songs like "THE TOXIC WALTZ". The song advocates slam dance brutality, which
Exodus enthusiasts take to heart. Vocalist Steve Souza says one of his most
memorable Exodus gigs was in Tampa, Florida when stage-diving fanaticism left
one fan with a broken leg.
The lyrics of Exodus celebrate relentless rage in such songs as "CAJUN
HELL", which tells the story of murderous slaughter in the South. The
embittered Exodus offers for social disintegration is to pitch people in the
slam dance pit and slash each other with "Verbal Razor Blades", the title to
another Exodus song.
HELLOWEEN: They spurn authority and recommend rebellion. Their songs inform
fans there're stuck in a hopeless age of desperation. Headbanging Helloween's
album, "KEEPER of the SEVEN KEYS, Part II", describes one man's destruction of
the devil through divination and his god-like power. Helloween depicts the
devil accurately as possessing the keys to fear, greed, disease, and death.
Helloween also advocates libidious behavior in a song about a perverted
professor named "DR. SATAN", who clones his well-formed assistant and has a
hedonistic hay day. Blatant blasphemy marks a song called "SAVE US." The
lyrics advocate the New Age creed that all forms of life are manifestations of
spirit.
IRON MAIDEN: Iron Maiden's favorite subjects to sing about are sorcery and
savagery. Their fascination with the occult is evident on albums like "POWER
SLAVE", which delves in Egyptian mysticism and magic. On their album, "SEVENTH
SON OF THE SEVENTH SON", lead singer and lyricist Bruce Dickinson belts out
songs about demons and creatures of insanity. The album cover depicts Eddie,
the goulish Iron Maiden mascot symbolizing death, hovering above a gloomy
civilization. In his hand he holds a ripped-out heart, which is also chained
to his rib cage. On the other side of the LP, Eddie writes in a journal by the
light of monstrous candles with a crystal ball before him.
Iron Maiden celebrates the number seven which astrologists credit as the
number of the moon, in the SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON". In a song called,
"THE CLAIRVOYANT", Dickinson relates the struggle between God and the devil
for a telepathic child's soul. The boy falls in love with the devil's daughter
and eventually kills himself in the song, "ONLY THE GOOD DIE YOUNG". Their
first claim to fame was the album, "NUMBER OF THE BEAST", which featured a
song dedicated tot he Antichrist.
BLKBANDS
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MEGADETH: In 1983, after being expelled from Metallica for anti-social
behavior, Dave Mustaine took command of his own group. The son of Jehovah's
Witness mother, Mustaine vocally attacks Tipper Gore and the Parent's Music
Resource Center (P.M.R.C.), an organization Gore founded to censor raunchy
rock lyrics. In a song called, "HOOKED in MOUTH", Mustaine growls about Gore's
actions and accuses her of infringing on his constitutional right to freedom
of speech. Anyone who has heard his songs may question what right he has to
offend the public. In his remake of the Sex Pistol's song, "ANARCHY in the
UK", Mustaine sings, "I am an Anti-Christ, and I am AntiChrist."
Megadeth cranks out songs about spilling blood and stomping guts out with
venomous anger. Megadeth's album, "SO FAR, SO GOOD...SO WHAT", depicts a
shell-studded, combat-clad soldier whose melted face leers menacingly from
beneath a crude helmet. Admist the ruins of a nuclear holocaust, he stands
poised with a powerful weapon, ready to blast all living things. (The name
Megadeth refers to a hypothetical body count of one million deaths from a
nuclear war.)
Though Mustaine and band members claim to inform listeners on important
issues and deny allegiance to Satan, their first album was entitled, "KILLING
IS MY BUSINESS...AND BUSINESS IS GOOD." "BLACK FRIDAY", a song from their
album, "PEACE SELLS...BUT WHOSE BUYING", exalts sadistic slaughter. Lyrics
declare, "I LURK IN THE ALLEYS, WAIT FOR THE KILL. I HAVE NO REMORSE FOR THE
BLOOD THAT I SPILL." "THE CONJURING", also from that album, seemingly
simulates a satanic ceremony. The singer says, "I AM THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE" and
concludes "I'VE GOT YOUR SOUL." Another album, Megadeth muses over the fate of
a young witch buried alive by her father in a song called "MARY JANE."
Despite such occult collusion, Mustaine says, "We're aware of the subject we
write about--witchcraft, satanic sacrifices, and the like, but we are not
condoning them."
METAL CHURCH: The Metal Church song, "TON OF BRICKS" describes someone
ripping and kicking until "blood begins to flow." Another tune on the album
simply says, "I LIVE TO EAT YOUR BONES."
METALLICA: They play songs about "CREEPING DEATH as concert fans chant, "DIE!
DIE! DIE!" Clad in blue jeans, jeering members of Metallica bellow lyrics
lambasting war, drugs, and authority. James Hetfield, Metallica's lead singer
and lyricist, was heavily influenced as a teenager by Black Sabbath. Now his
band bewitches a new heavy metal generation of kids for whom Led Zeppelin and
Black Sabbath are outdated. Hetfield, the son of strict Christian Scientists,
wrote, "DYER"S EVE", a dismal song about rage directed at parents. Spiteful
lyrics accuse his mother and father of putting him through hell with their
parenting.
These harvesters of heavy metal sorrow foster defiance among their growing
ranks of raunch-relishing, headbanger listeners. Metallica's popular first LP,
not-so,subtly titled, "KILL' EM ALL", sold 350,000 copies. Although they
profess no interest in satanism, Metallica explored the works of occult writer
H.P. Lovecraft while composing "THE THING THAT SHOULD NOT BE", a song that
tells of an immortal sanity-stealing stalker of the shadows.
Though some Metallica songs boarder on social commentary ("MASTER OF
PUPPETS", "DISPOSABLE HEROES", "LEPER MESSIAH"), most of their tunes celebrate
suicide, hatred, and hopelessness. In many Metallica songs, death is the only
escape in a world of "blackened *banality". Songs like "FADE TO BLACK" from
their "RIDE THE LIGHTNING" album, and "ONE" from the album, "JUSTICE FOR ALL"
laud death as a welcome friend in a world of frustration, pain and failure.
SLAYER: This group sings about *necrophilia and lyrically declares, "PRAISE
SATAN" - "WELCOME TO HELL" - "HELL AWAITS" "CRUCIFY THE SO-CALLED LORD, JESUS
KNOWS YOUR SOUL CANNOT BE SAVED". In their song, "BLACK MAGIC", they sing,
"CAPTIVE OF A FORCE OF SATAN'S MIGHT-DEATH TAKES MY HAND AND CAPTURES MY
SOUL." In the song, "EVIL HAS NO BOUNDARIES", they expose who their master is,
"SATAN IS OUR MASTER IN EVIL MAYHEM GUIDES US WITH EVERY FIRST STEP." In their
song, "SPILL THE BLOOD", they song, "SPILL YOUR BLOOD, LET IT RUN ON TO ME.
TAKE MY HAND AND LET YOUR LIFE GO...YOU'VE SPILT THE BLOOD. I HAVE YOUR SOUL."
Their song, "ALTER OF SACRIFICE" describes the human sacrifice of a virgin
with lyrics like, "SATAN'S SLAUGHTER, CEREMONIAL DEATH. ANSWER HIS EVERY
COMMAND. ENTER INTO THE REALM OF SATAN...LEARN THE SACRED WORDS OF 'HAIL
SATAN'". Their song, "ANGEL OF DEATH", praises the Auschwitch butcher, Joseph
Mengle with the word, "SADIST SURGEON OF DEMISE, SADIST OF THE NOBLIST
BLOOD...MONARCH TO THE KINGDOM OF THE DEAD." In "NECROPHILIAC", the lyrics go,
"I FEEL THE URGE, THE GROWING NEED TO F*%$# THIS SINFUL CORPSE. MY TASK
COMPLETE, THE BITCH'S SOUL LIES RAPED IN DEMON LUST."
*Banality - without flavor - tasteless- dull - lifeless
*Necrophilia - abnormal fascination with the dead - erotic attraction to
corpses.
