Heavy Metal Pt II

Summary

Stuff You Should Know – Episode: Heavy Metal Pt II
Release Date: August 14, 2025
Hosts: Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant
Production: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In the second part of their deep dive into the world of heavy metal, Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant explore the multifaceted realm of metal music. From notorious antics of legendary figures to the intricate subgenres and profound societal impacts, this episode offers a comprehensive look into what makes heavy metal a lasting and influential force in the music industry.

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Ozzy Osbourne's Controversies

[01:55] Josh Clark: "Did you know Ozzy was kicked out of Black Sabbath for partying too hard?"

Josh and Chuck kick off the discussion by delving into the infamous controversies surrounding Ozzy Osbourne. Known for his wild behavior, Ozzy was ousted from Black Sabbath in the late '70s due to excessive partying. This led to Ronnie James Dio taking his place and Ozzy embarking on a successful solo career. A highlight of Ozzy’s notoriety includes his shocking stunt at a CBS sales convention where he bit the heads off live doves instead of releasing them. "He bit the head off one to shock people in a room," Josh remarks ([03:07]).

The conversation takes a darker turn as they discuss Ozzy's infamous bat incident in Des Moines. Chuck shares, “When somebody threw a bat on stage, right?” leading to Ozzy reportedly biting the head off a bat. However, subsequent investigations revealed the bat was already dead, complicating the narrative. Josh humorously reflects, “I don't know what is worse, biting the head off of a live bat or biting the head off of a bat that's been sitting around dead for a couple of days.”

PMRC and Censorship in Metal

[04:26] Josh Clark: "The PMRC released their Filthy 15, and nine out of the 15 were metal or hard rock bands."

The hosts revisit the impact of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) from 1985, led by Tipper Gore. The PMRC aimed to "clean up" music by introducing content ratings and released the controversial Filthy 15 list, predominantly featuring metal and hard rock bands. "Venom and merciful fate again. I get why suburban parents were scared of these guys," Chuck explains ([05:01]).

Josh points out the unintended consequences, noting how explicit lyrics labels and MTV's Headbangers Ball provided metal with a badge of honor, inadvertently boosting the genre's popularity. "They ended up with the warning explicit lyrics sticker, which actually helped a lot of hip hop groups sell more records," he adds.

MTV and the Exposure of Metal

[05:54] Host 1: "Iron Maiden had not one, but two videos played on MTV in the first 24 hours that MTV was on the air."

MTV's role in promoting heavy metal is another focal point. Initially, MTV featured an eclectic mix of genres, including heavy metal, with bands like Iron Maiden breaking into the mainstream. However, as pressure from groups like the PMRC mounted, metal content was relegated to specialized shows like Headbangers Ball. "Headbangers Ball was a haven where metalheads could really sink in for a couple of hours," Josh notes ([07:24]).

Diversity in Heavy Metal

[07:52] Josh Clark: "Metal has been and still remains pretty white, working-class male for the most part, but it's definitely gotten more diverse."

Josh and Chuck highlight the gradual diversification within the metal scene. While traditionally dominated by white, working-class males, bands like Bad Brains, Body Count, and Living Color have introduced greater racial and cultural diversity. They also spotlight female metal pioneers such as Elisa Whitegloz from Arch Enemy and Nita Strauss, praising their contributions and influence. "Nita is great. I met her backstage, and she's super awesome," Chuck shares ([10:13]).

Metal Tropes: Fashion and Typography

[12:25] Josh Clark: "Decorative umlauts make anything seem more metal in writing."

The discussion shifts to iconic metal aesthetics, including the use of leather and studs pioneered by Rob Halford of Judas Priest, reflecting the genre's roots in underground gay BDSM clubs. They also explore the humorous yet significant use of decorative umlauts in band names, attributing its popularization to metal culture rather than its initial use by bands like Blue Oyster Cult. "If you throw a couple of decorative umlauts in there, it just looks more metal," Chuck comments ([12:39]).

Roots of Heavy Metal: Classical Influences

[14:11] Josh Clark: "Many heavy metal lead guitarists were schooled in classical music."

The hosts emphasize the technical prowess inherent in metal music, noting its classical influences. Guitar virtuosos like Randy Rhoads and Eddie Van Halen incorporated classical training into their playing, enhancing metal's complexity and virtuosity. "Metal musicians tend to be about as talented as you'll find in any rock outfit by far," Josh asserts ([14:11]).

Metal's Social and Political Messages

[24:14] Josh Clark: "Metal is a very sort of low key leftist musical genre."

Josh and Chuck explore the often-overlooked social and political dimensions of metal music. Using Metallica’s "Injustice for All" as a prime example, they discuss how metal frequently carries anti-establishment, anti-fascist, and anti-authoritarian messages. "It's essentially super populist, anti establishment, anti fascism, anti authoritarian messages," Josh explains ([24:14]).

They also address instances where the metal community has stood against far-right ideologies, citing Phil Anselmo's racist outbursts and the collective condemnation from fellow metal artists. "People came out speaking out against them, not the least of which was Scott Ian of Anthrax," Chuck adds ([27:02]).

Impact of Metal on the Brain

[28:37] Josh Clark: "Metal tests and taxes your brain in a good way."

The conversation delves into the cognitive effects of listening to metal. Studies indicate that metal music engages the brain through complex rhythms and time signatures, enhancing focus and emotional resilience. "People with ADHD and people on the autism spectrum tend to report that heavy metal actually helps them focus better," Josh shares ([28:37]).

Subgenres and Complexity in Metal

[32:35] Josh Clark: "Mathcore is a combination of metalcore and math rock."

Josh and Chuck dissect the intricate subgenres within metal, highlighting how metal's diversification rivals that of any other musical genre. They explain mathcore as a niche blend of metalcore and math rock, characterized by its technical complexity and experimental nature. "Metal is so divided and cut up the genre of heavy metal is. That's how niche it's gotten into," Josh observes ([32:35]).

Album Covers: Art as Part of the Metal Experience

[39:35] Host 1: "Album covers are always important, but it feels like metal they're even more important."

Album art holds a pivotal role in metal's visual identity. The hosts discuss iconic covers such as Black Sabbath's self-titled debut, Metallica’s "Master of Puppets," and Dio’s "Holy Diver." Each artwork not only complements the music but also enhances the listener's experience. "It's just part of the experience," Chuck emphasizes ([40:39]).

The Tragic Death of Randy Rhoads

[47:03] Josh Clark: "Randy Rhoads was a very soft-spoken guy, virtuoso from the jump as a teenager."

A poignant segment covers the untimely death of Randy Rhoads, the virtuoso guitarist who joined Ozzy Osbourne’s band. At just 25, Randy died in a plane crash after piloting a Beechcraft Bonanza to buzz the band's tour bus, resulting in a tragic loss for the metal community and Ozzy personally. "Randy Rhodes was a great kid. He was a very soft-spoken guy," Josh reflects ([47:15]).

Rolling Stone's Top 10 Metal Albums

[55:22] Josh Clark: "Number one with a Bullet Paranoid from Black Sabbath."

Chuck presents a Rolling Stone-inspired top 10 list of metal albums, featuring classics like Pantera’s "Vulgar Display of Power," Metallica’s "Master of Puppets," and Black Sabbath’s "Paranoid." Though the hosts humorously debate the rankings, the list underscores the enduring legacy of these seminal works. "Number one with a Bullet Paranoid from Black Sabbath," Chuck announces ([55:22]).

Closing Remarks

[58:34] Josh Clark: "If you want to get in touch with us about heavy metal or anything, you can send it via email."

Josh and Chuck conclude the episode by encouraging listeners to engage with them about heavy metal and share their favorite bands or stories. They also offer book and movie recommendations related to the themes discussed, ensuring the conversation ends on a thoughtful and engaging note.

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Notable Quotes

• Josh Clark [01:55]: "Did you know Ozzy was kicked out of Black Sabbath for partying too hard?"
• Josh Clark [03:07]: "He bit the head off one to shock people in a room."
• Josh Clark [05:54]: "The PMRC released their Filthy 15, and nine out of the 15 were metal or hard rock bands."
• Josh Clark [12:25]: "Decorative umlauts make anything seem more metal in writing."
• Josh Clark [14:11]: "Many heavy metal lead guitarists were schooled in classical music."
• Josh Clark [24:14]: "Metal is a very sort of low key leftist musical genre."
• Josh Clark [28:37]: "Metal tests and taxes your brain in a good way."
• Chuck Bryant [55:22]: "Number one with a Bullet Paranoid from Black Sabbath."

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Conclusion

"Heavy Metal Pt II" offers an in-depth exploration of heavy metal's rich history, cultural significance, and enduring influence. From legendary controversies and battles against censorship to the genre’s deep social messages and complex subgenres, Josh and Chuck provide listeners with a thorough understanding of what makes metal a powerful and enduring musical force.

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For more insights and episodes, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Host 1]

This is an iHeart podcast.

[Host 2]

IHeart presents the big three playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. The action starts with the Big three Monster Energy celebrity game. Then Dwight Howard and his LA Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power who will make it to the big three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3p Eastern, 12 Pacific. Only on CBS.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions.

[Josh Clark]

Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree? Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair?

[Bob Crawford]

And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is such a ridiculous story.

[Bob Crawford]

You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck. And Jerry's here, too, for part two of our episodes on Heavy Metal. The music. Sorry, all you chem majors who showed up with different expectations, would you like.

[Host 1]

Like to see the Pope on the end of the rope? Do you think he's a fool?

[Josh Clark]

What is that?

[Host 1]

That's Sabbath. My brother always laughed at that line. Which song it's on? I think it's on Master of Reality. I don't know the name of the song. I think it said End of the Rope. End of a rope, obviously.

[Josh Clark]

I'll bet your brother thought that was funny. He did, yeah.

[Host 1]

I think that's the only thing he knows about Black Sabbath, which is hysterical.

[Josh Clark]

Some of it is pretty comical, you know.

[Host 1]

Yeah. I mean. And I guess let's go ahead and kick off part two with talking about Ozzy, because this is the section where we're going to talk about some controversies. And Ozzie in his day certainly had a few of them. He was kicked out of Black Sabbath in the late 70s because he partied too hard for Black Sabbath even. He was replaced by the great Ronnie James Dio and went on to have a solo career. But there are a couple of things that happened in his life, notably biting the heads off of things that gained him a lot of attention. At one CBS sales convention, he was supposed to release these live doves and instead he bit the heads off of them. And the story's changed a lot over the years, so depending on who you're talking to is what version. But he bit the head off of one to shock people in a room and apparently was being let out. Bit the head off the other. There are also people that said that they were not alive at the time.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's what I saw.

[Host 1]

The same thing when he bit the head off of a bat in Des Moines in 1982 on stage. When somebody threw a bat on stage, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And somebody tracked down the guy who threw the bat, and he said that bat had been dead for days. Yeah.

[Host 1]

Mark Neal.

[Josh Clark]

And I don't know what is worse, biting the head off of a live bat or biting the head off of a bat that's been sitting around dead for a couple of days. I. I don't know.

[Host 1]

Flip a coin, buddy.

[Josh Clark]

Either way, I've. I've reached a point in my life where I can't even take talking about like, that. Yeah, that's. That's the. Like, just don't kill the dog. That's. That's where I've gotten to in life.

[Host 1]

No, I'm with you.

[Josh Clark]

You know?

[Host 1]

Yeah. I mean, he. He snorted live ants beside a swimming pool on tour with Motley Crue, and I feel bad for those ants.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. What did they do? Like, you know, nothing. I. I think Ozzy was a cool dude in a lot of ways, but he was also very hard to get around, and that was one reason why I got kicked out of Black Sabbath. Like, some people, like Dave Mustaine, like, Ozzy, like, their bandmates were partying as hard as they were, sometimes harder, but they didn't turn into evil jerks.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Who would, like, get in your face or try to kill you or, like, try to. Try to do something horrible and, like, ruin everybody's time. That's how you would get kicked out of a heavy metal band, by being such a jerk that your bandmates are like, we can't put up with this anymore. We're going to replace you.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I think that was definitely the case with Mustaine. I think Ozzy was a little more. His reliability became an issue.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is that right?

[Host 1]

Yeah. I think that was a deal. But we should talk a little bit. I know we covered it in the Satanic Panic episode, but you can't have a metal episode without talking a little bit about the Parents Music resource center, the PMRC, in 1985, led by Tipper Gore, Al Gore's wife. At one point, they were on a mission to clean up Music and to at the very least get ratings on record albums. So at one point they released their Filthy 15 of the filthiest 15 songs. And nine out of the 15 were either metal or hard rock bands.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I mean, Def Leppard, come on.

[Host 1]

I mean, they're, they're considered metal, but I don't know what song that would have even been.

[Josh Clark]

No, that's what I'm saying. Not whether or not they're metal. Same with ACDC in Twisted Sister. Like, what are these guys singing about that you need to censor? Like, give me a break. Venom and merciful fate again. I get why suburban parents were scared of these guys. They were like legit. Like, let's talk about Satan and how great he is and how much you suck religious people. So yes, I'm sure. And I'm not saying like, yeah, they deserve to be censored. I get that one. But Madonna, Prince, Def Leppard, like, it's just. It was, it was. It just goes to show you how preposterous the whole thing was. But a lot of people say it worked. I mean, that's how we ended up with the warning explicit lyrics sticker, which actually helped a lot of hip hop groups sell more records.

[Host 1]

You mean the Badge of Honor?

[Josh Clark]

Exactly.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But some people say that MTV actually kind of was under pressure to stop showing as much heavy metal. And that heavy metal got pushed a little bit out of the mainstream, but. But instead onto night, like the two hour version of Headbangers Ball every week, which is not a lot compared to what it used to be. Like, I don't know if we said, but Iron maiden had not one, but two videos played on MTV in the first 24 hours that MTV was on the air. And I think they were played more than once. And the first one was sandwiched in between Rod Stewart Sailing and REO Speedwagon's Keep on Loving you.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I mean, the rotation for MTV was eclectic for sure. And that's kind of what people liked about it for the most part. Cause it was way more eclectic than. Than FM radio even, because that was generally genreed. And they didn't jump around from Madonna to Iron Maiden on radio. No, for the most part. I mean, maybe there might be some, like, maybe KROQ was doing something like that. But generally you had to go to MTV to get metal at all. And then when they sequestered it to Headbangers Ball, initially I think it was called Heavy Metal Mania, hosted by Dee Snider. But then it became Headbangers Ball. With once again, the great Ricky Rockman. Love that guy. At least then metalheads had a place to go where you could really sink in for a couple of hours, you know, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Same with, remember, 120 minutes for new waivers.

[Host 1]

Matt Penfield.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, you wanna see a Bauhaus video, that's where you go.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

And if you wanna know our metal bona fides people, we've been in the same room as Dee Snider. He nodded to us once in passing in a hallway.

[Host 1]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, Headbangers also had some tours in North America when It was really big. 87, 89 and 92.

[Host 1]

So they were a festival thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And then I think also we should mention too that one of the things about metal is that it has been and I think still remains pretty white, working class male for the most part, but it's definitely gotten more diverse than it was in the mid-80s, say.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I mean, there weren't a lot of bands. I mean, there were bands like Bad Brains that was way more punk but had metal sort of sounds with their guitar love. Bad Brains, Body Count came around. They were. I mean, I think they were for sure kind of speed metal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but with Ice T rapping.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I saw them at that Lollapalooza. I'm not going to include Living Color at all, even though Livia does. Sorry, Livia, you missed the mark there.

[Josh Clark]

No, Vernon Reed's guitar playing is metal.

[Host 1]

I don't know. Listen to the song Glamour Boys. I mean, come on.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it's kind of hair metal.

[Host 1]

Y Glamour Boys. Is it?

[Josh Clark]

Hey, hey, speaking of hair metal, I forgot one great hair metal band.

[Host 1]

Let's hear it.

[Josh Clark]

That came out much more recently.

[Host 1]

Oh, I thought you were going to say Europe.

[Josh Clark]

No, Europe's definitely in there with the Final Countdown. No, the Darkness, they're a great hair metal band. Even though they're like, I guess, tongue in cheek. I think they know that they're tongue in cheek. But they're really great as far as hair metal music goes. They're talented musicians.

[Host 1]

Yeah. I think there was a wave around then where people started to kind of try to evoke that thing again. And the Darkness was in that group.

[Josh Clark]

And then Fishbone, that was another all black band that you could make a case, had some definite metal tendencies, for sure.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Not Living Color, definitely Fishbone. I loved Fishbone. Truth and Soul is one of the great albums of all time. And I saw them several times in concert.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. And then also Living Color featuring Vernon Reid. And we talked a little bit about women, too, Right. We talked about Elisa Whitegloz from Archenemy. She's actually the second woman singer for Archenemy. There was a singer named Angela Gossau who was, I think, replaced the original male singer of Arch Enemy Again, a melodic Swedish death metal band. And then there's another metal queen out there who at least used to be a Stuff youf Should Know listener named Nita Strauss.

[Host 1]

Yeah, Nita is great. I met her backstage because she was kind enough to invite us to the Motley Crue show where she still plays with the Alice Cooper Band. And I met Nita, and she's super awesome. And I think she's since gotten married, so congratulations on that.

[Josh Clark]

Congrats. Yeah, she's also in Iron Maidens. The Iron Maiden, all women, Iron Maiden cover band.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure. And guess what? That Judas Priest show I'm going to, Anita will be there because Alice Cooper's opening up.

[Josh Clark]

Awesome, dude. Well, hopefully she hears this.

[Host 1]

I hope so, because we're not in touch or anything. I just remember she was super sweet and was big into science.

[Josh Clark]

That's really cool, man.

[Host 1]

Kind of a science nerd.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's right.

[Host 1]

Great guitar player, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Speaking of Judas Priest, are you going to dress like a leather daddy to the Judas Priest show?

[Host 1]

I'm not going to dress like a leather daddy because I don't have those clothes and I wouldn't want to just. What do you call that appropriate? Like a legit style for a demographic. But, yeah, I mean, that's definitely a heavy metal. The leather and studs is a heavy metal trope. Like no other.

[Josh Clark]

Where did it come from, Chuck?

[Host 1]

I mean, probably Rob Halford and going to underground gay clubs in London would be my guess.

[Josh Clark]

Yes, that's right. All of the, like, black leather, metal studded look that permeates heavy metal still in part to this day, came from gay BDSM clubs that Rob Halford, as far as I know, the only out LGBTQ metal singer, went to while he was still very much in the closet.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I think it's great. It's amazing. I can't wait to see. I'll send you videos and stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Okay? Please do.

[Host 1]

Yeah, just you, not everybody. Maybe I'll post some on my Instagram account, uckthepodcaster, so be looking for that this fall.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, fine. So, Chuck, speaking of tropes, like dressing like a leather daddy to be a metal God, there's actually a few others that are. They're not necessarily like, oh, this is A characteristic of metal. They're just things that bands have done and copied each other on over the years that now people say, like, this is a characteristic of metal. Right?

[Host 1]

Yeah. I mean, I have to mention the decorative umlaut. It's one of the funniest kind of greatest things and one of the biggest, except for, I think, Blue Oyster Cult, who, I don't consider metal. They have the umlaut or the o and oyster.

[Josh Clark]

They're definitely tough.

[Host 1]

But it became very metal. There's no other way to make anything seem metal in writing than to. There's certain fonts that we'll talk about, but if you throw a couple of decorative umlauts in there, it just looks more metal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I think even Scandinavian bands that have their own thing, which is the. The forward slash going through the O. Yeah. I think they actually, in some cases replace that with an umlaut. That's how metal the umlaut is.

[Host 1]

Oh, wow. Okay.

[Josh Clark]

And apparently a rock critic named Richard Metzler claims that he was the one who told Blue Oyster Cult to use that. To use an umlaut unnecessarily. People say that Blue Oyster Cult was the one who did that, like you said. And Richard Meltzer or Metzler also claims to be the one who suggests that they use more cowbell in their music.

[Host 1]

Oh, man, I didn't see that coming somehow. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that makes me very happy.

[Host 1]

Very nice. Classical music as an inspiration is definitely. I don't even call it a trope. It's just a thing in metal. The theatricality, the virtuosity, and that technical ability. You'll find that many heavy metal lead guitarists were schooled in classical, not the least of which is the great Randy Rhodes, who we'll talk about later. And Eddie Van Halen took classical piano lessons and stuff like that when he was a kid.

[Josh Clark]

Metal God.

[Host 1]

Piano player.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Host 1]

Not a metal God, but yeah. So classical for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. The thing is, one thing to understand about metal across the board in any genre or subgenre is there are very few bands that make music where you can suck. You essentially have to be an expert, extremely talented musician to play metal. Even the stuff that you're like, what is this? If you actually stopped and listened to the layers, the composition, the time signatures, this is really complex, complicated music in every single sub genre. So metal as a whole, as a group, metal musicians tend to be about as talented as you'll find in any rock outfit by far.

[Host 1]

Yeah, 100%. They all have chops. That was another thing that got Me a little bit into metal was. I started playing guitar when I was 13 and immediately subscribed to Guitar Player magazine, which was. I mean, that's how I knew about all those guitar players. Emily always makes fun of me when she's like, Judas Priest. And I'll go Glenn Tipton and K.K. downing and I can name all these guitar players. It's from pouring over that magazine. Like, I wasn't even that into Judas Priest, but I knew these guys from these articles.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yeah. I still to this day lament that I had a terrible teacher for electric guitar on my salmon colored. I don't even remember what kind of guitar it was, but I remember I complained about him before and someone who had that same teacher wrote in and was like, I know exactly what you're talking about. That guy sucked.

[Host 1]

Oh, man. Who knows what could have happened.

[Josh Clark]

They even told me the band. I can't remember what the band was. I wouldn't name check him anyway because I don't want to shame the guy. But he was a terrible guitar teacher and I was really into it at the time.

[Host 1]

Well, I got a BC Rich candy apple red BC Rich guitar because of that early sort of hard rock influence because it's kind of a corny guitar now. Did not get a warlock. For people who know BC Rich guitars, that's one of the most metal looking guitars ever.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is it like the Triangle? The Flying Triangle?

[Host 1]

No, no, no, that's the Flying Bee.

[Josh Clark]

Which they don't call it the Flying Triangle.

[Host 1]

The Flying Bee can definitely be metal, but it also has been used in a lot of classic rock.

[Josh Clark]

Well, what's the one you're talking about?

[Host 1]

I'll send you a picture of it. You'd know it as soon as you saw it.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Host 1]

You probably don't have your phone though, right?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, there it is.

[Host 1]

I'll send it to you and you'll text me after.

[Josh Clark]

What else, Chuck? Anything else?

[Host 1]

Well, I mean, you gotta mention Lord of the Rings because we kind of joked about it. But Lord of the Rings has been in a lot of metal songs. Like figuratively, like thematically and literally.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. So yeah, there's like Led Zeppelin song about the darkest depths of mortar and all sorts of other stuff too. And throughout like their whole catalog, I think. Who else was well known for that? I think Megadeth had a song that was based on Eragon's speech in the Return of the King. Like, it's a really recurring. It is. It's a trope. There's no other way to put It. It's been in heavy metal from the outset still through today. People are referencing it in some ways, in some cases. Like. Like there's a group called Burzum. There was a solo project by Varg Vicarnese. He was imprisoned for murdering former bandmate Euronymous from Mayhem.

[Host 1]

Oh, okay.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And then he was also charged with burning down churches in the. He's from the black metal scene. Anyway, Burzum, not a good guy, does not talk about Lord of the Rings stuff at all. And yet it's still from Lord of the Rings. Burzum is. But this, I think, kind of gets across how black metal the Burzum project was. Burzum in Lord of the Rings means darkness in the black speech that's spoken in Mordor. So it's dark in the darkest place and it means darkness in that dark place language. That's how dark that black metal was.

[Host 1]

And their album cover is Vantablack.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. No light can escape from it.

[Host 1]

We should also mention. We'll take a break here in a sec, but we should also mention the gothic font. I mentioned fonts. You got to have the right font on your metal album. Sabbath definitely was kind of one of the first. I think their album Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath used the old English black letter typeface. And there's nothing spookier looking than Blackletter, you know?

[Josh Clark]

No, for sure. But what's hilarious is it's just evolved and evolved and evolved to where very frequently you'll run across a metal album cover and you'll be like, what. What is the band's name? I can't. I can't decipher this at all.

[Host 1]

Can't even read it.

[Josh Clark]

It's just so tangled. Like, I can't tell what it says. Sometimes when you find out the band's name, you'll be like, oh, okay, I see it now. But other times you're like, I still don't see it.

[Host 1]

It's pretty funny. It's like. It's a very Spinal Tap.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yes, it is. Yeah. And they definitely should at least get name checked in this episode, right?

[Host 1]

Yeah, absolutely. In fact, just today at their new trailer for the Spinal Tap sequel Dropped.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really?

[Host 1]

Yeah. Doesn't look that great. But I don't know. I'm going to definitely see it. I'm withholding judgment.

[Josh Clark]

It just. It doesn't look very good.

[Host 1]

No, I think it was just. I don't know. I mean, it's a good enough concept, like, get the old band back together for one more show. So it's not like the idea isn't solid. Like that's a very, like, realistic thing for an old metal band. I just. I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

We'll see.

[Host 1]

All right, so enough of fonts. Let's take a break and we'll talk about some brain stuff and album covers and social views and all that fun stuff right after this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Annabe, you never have to stress about messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Anabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Bob Crawford]

American history is full of wise people.

[Josh Clark]

What woman said something like, you know, 99 of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history. And I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

[Host 1]

Hamilton pauses and then he says, the.

[Bob Crawford]

Greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

[Josh Clark]

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

[Bob Crawford]

Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Lithgow]

Hello, I'm John Lithgow.

[Host 1]

We choose to go to the moon.

[John Lithgow]

I want to tell you about my new Friends fiction podcast.

[Josh Clark]

That's one small step for man.

[John Lithgow]

It's about Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space.

[Host 1]

You're a great pilot, Buzz. As far as I'm concerned, the best I've seen.

[John Lithgow]

That's the story you think you know. This is the story you don't predisposition.

[Chuck Bryant]

To depression, alcohol abuse and suicide?

[John Lithgow]

We'll see. Buzz, try to Overcome demons.

[Host 1]

What do you say? Buzz?

[John Lithgow]

Another beer and triumph over addiction.

[Josh Clark]

Here's to you, Buzz Aldrin.

[John Lithgow]

Good luck to you and become a true hero.

[Host 1]

Buzz and I will proceed into the.

[John Lithgow]

Lunar module not because he conquers space, but because he conquers himself.

[Josh Clark]

Buzz, we intercepted a Soviet radio transmission.

[John Lithgow]

Starring me, John Lithgow.

[Host 1]

Can you put it through?

[John Lithgow]

Can you Translate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Josh Clark]

Columbia, you all right, Chuck? So if you are not a metal listener, but you're aware of heavy metal just in general, you probably associate it with satanic stuff. And again, yeah, in some cases you're absolutely right. And not like satanic in the satanic temple or Satanism like Satan, the folkloric, mythological, evil one. Like some bands are super, super into that. Right. But there's also a lot of other stuff. Remember we talked about Iron Maiden having all these different themes to their songs. One of the things that metal is not necessarily known for, but it's a big part of it. They have like pretty strong social views. And if you really kind of drill down into them, it's essentially super populist, anti establishment, anti fascism, anti authoritarian messages, frequently anti aggression too, especially the government. On the government's behalf. The government being aggressive. You can find that throughout the entire metal community. And I think a lot of people kind of overlook it.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I mean, cast aside the black metal scene, which like you mentioned in, I guess it was part one, where there's a lot of like white supremacist threads and things like that, and far right ideology. If you cast that aside, cast aside 80s hair metal, which just something about chicks. One might make the argument that heavy metal is a very sort of low key leftist musical genre.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like, okay, so take Metallica for example, starting with Ride the Lightning, the title songs back from 1984. It's basically about like how the. It questions the government's state monopoly on violence. Right. Like their moral right to execute anybody. That's pretty anti authoritarian. It's also pretty libertarian throughout. So if the. If the lyrics aren't left leaning in general, they also tend to be libertarian too. And their whole album, Injustice for All, song after song after song has a huge robust political message to it, basically across the entire album.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure. The song one is an anti war song. Injustice for all is about the corruption of the justice system. Eye of the Beholder, that's about the repression of freedom of speech and expression. What else?

[Josh Clark]

The Shortest straws about fascism. Witch Hunt Riding through Blackened is a straight up overt environmentalist song.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah. They literally talk about, like, poisoning Mother Nature.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And you find this, like, it's not just Metallica. You find this throughout. Throughout the metal community. Like, even if it's not, like, clear immediately, if you actually stop and listen to the subtext of what the song is saying, it's usually about the powerful and the elite being served at the expense of the masses, the populist masses. That is essentially what you can boil almost every song, again, saving black metal and death metal too, down into. Like, that's the message of just about every. Every metal song at its heart. At least one song on the album is going to be like that.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Even old Dave Mustaine with Megadeth. I mean, peace sells, but who's buying? He's singing about peace just like the hippies in the 60s might have been, just through a very different sort of genre.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And some people actually credit him for promoting metal music to have messages. He was taking a shot, clearly, at hair bands, too, at the same time. But there was an interview with him in the LA Times in 1986 where he said a band should be aware of what's going on instead of being so wrapped up in themselves. Cece Deville, also fairly ironic. Yeah, that's pretty much named. Yeah, for sure.

[Host 1]

And then, you know, you have cases where, like, Pantera's former frontman Phil Anselmo, was caught on video shouting white power on stage and giving a Nazi salute. And, like, the metal community was outraged. Like, people came out, you know, speaking out against them, not the least of which was Scott Ian of Anthrax saying, like, you know, that's a vile thing to do. And they were, you know, it was heartening to see that kind of thing, you know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it was about as close to being canceled as you can get in the metal community, which isn't really a cancel culture, you know.

[Host 1]

Is that not a thing?

[Josh Clark]

No. And then it actually goes all the way to the far left. And this is much less typical. But you have, like, grindcore bands like Napalm Death that came out of the hardcore punk tradition of being very socially left, even into, like, the anarchist territory, essentially. But for the most part, it's probably center left. Maybe libertarian is the bulk of the messages that you'll find in metal music.

[Host 1]

Can we talk about how your brain does on heavy metal? Because they've actually done some studies that have found. And of course, we should say there are people that struggle with mental health, where music and certainly metal has had some negative impacts and there are examples of that. But you know, aside from that, it seems like metal actually like kind of tests and taxes your brain in a good way. Maybe taxes isn't the right word. Challenges your brain in a good way because it immediately starts firing to start making sense of this sort of musical puzzle and all these complex rhythms and time signatures that kind of go hand in hand.

[Josh Clark]

Right, yeah. So your brain basically is being worked out. Like it's not just just sitting there like being vibed at, like it's working, trying to decode all this stuff. And yet paradoxically, for a lot of people, they report that it actually helps improve their focus. I think people with ADHD and people on the autism spectrum tend to report that heavy heavy metal actually helps them focus better. Which is pretty, pretty interesting because if your brain's decoding that, you would think that it would be focus on that, but it's not. It can do that separately, apparently. And then also emotionally it seems to have positive effects too.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure. I mean, there are so many, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of heavy metal fans that may be despondent or angry or frustrated or sad or something. And this music provides a real outlet. You know, whether they're just in their room on their headphones or they're driving around in their car through their, you know, weird suburbia that they don't relate to or where they're going to a concert. And it provides a real legitimate release for that stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and that's not just like anecdotal. There have actually been studies that have been published in peer reviewed journals that show that there are positive emotional effects that are experienced by metalheads from listening to metal music. There's one from 2013 that studied 414 British metalheads and they found a mixed bag. Right. They found that they had a higher openness to experience, which is one of the big five personality traits generally considered positive. They had more negative attitudes toward authority. Can't really disagree with that if you are questioning the authority of a corrupt government.

[Host 1]

Right, yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Lower self esteem. Didn't quite understand that. That might just be that metal music attracts people with lower self esteem. I don't think it gives people lower self esteem.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I think that's the case.

[Josh Clark]

Greater need for uniqueness.

[Host 1]

Love it.

[Josh Clark]

And then lower religiosity. Religiosity, that's not very surprising either. You know, I was like, are they playing them? Like, are they confused and they think Van Halen's metal and that's what they're playing like the 1984 album, but it turns out like they're playing like legit metal stuff. Like they played As I Lay Dying, Cradle of Faith, Overkill, like actual metal. And they were still getting these results, which I found heartening.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure. There was another study I thought was pretty interesting from 2019. It was 32 fans of metal, 44 non fans of metal. And they found. And this one's important because I think especially in the 80s with the PMRC, there was a lot of just gobbledygook going around that, like, it's going to make your child something. It's going to make them into this. It's going to make them violent. And in that study in 2019, they found that metalheads have the same negative bias toward seeing violent imagery that people who don't listen to metal have. Even if they're listening to metal that has violent lyrics and themes, it doesn't then transfer. Like, if they see an image of violence, they're still like, oh, I don't want to see that.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Exactly. I don't actually want to do that. Right.

[Host 1]

I just want to. Yeah, exactly. It's just rocks.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, exactly. It just keeps going on and on. I think the point of these studies, especially if you compile them together like we did, is that there's just such a dumb misunderstanding or wrong interpretation of what metal is and what it does. Again, accepting black metal, they're definitely the outliers here.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. So we talked a little bit about genres and subgenres, but we'll dig in a little more here because it gets really confusing. And I don't know many of these bands at all, but I feel like we should just mention a few of these subgenres. Right.

[Josh Clark]

Do you want to. You want to go through this kind of anatomy of just a single subgenre?

[Host 1]

I mean, I feel like. I mean, we're all those under Math Core.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. This is where mathcore came from.

[Host 1]

Oh, yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So mathcore is a type of. Of metal music. Very, very, very niche sub genre. And it's so niche that the bands of this subgenre have names like the Tony Danza Tap Dance Experience or the Dillinger Escape Plan. Okay. Super niche. And Math Corps is a combination of metalcore and math rock. And I know you know what math rock is, right?

[Host 1]

Yeah, I used to listen to a little bit of that in college. That is rock music that's very complex musically. A lot of weird time signatures, a lot of starts and stops. If You've heard math Rock, and you may have heard it and not known it was math rock, but you just thought, like, what an interesting odd band.

[Josh Clark]

So you've got math Rock. Math Rock, you said, with its interesting time signatures and very technical playing that evolved from prog rock, like Rush, Genesis, King Crimson. Yes, from the 70s. Right. And then math rock was also influenced by jazz. That's just math rock. That's one part that math Core is made up of. On the other side, you've got metalcore. The other half of Math Core, it's a combination of hardcore and extreme metal. You might say, oh, okay, Hardcore punk. No, wrong. Hardcore is different if you're a purist.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

From hardcore punk. Hardcore is like bands like Code Orange, Vane. Hardcore punk is Minor Threat, Black Flag. They're very close together. They sound similar, but they're. They're different sub genres. So metal core is hardcore and extreme metal, which is a big umbrella term for a bunch of other types of metal too.

[Host 1]

Okay. And extreme metal is also under math core.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. So extreme metal is one of the basis, or is the basis of metal core. And there's different types of subgenres. In extreme metal, you've got death metal, black metal, progressive metal, kind of like prog rock, but metal, doom metal, stoner metal. These are all varieties of extreme metal. And so all of those can have their own core. Right. Their own version of metal core. And so probably progressive extreme metal with hardcore. That version of metal core probably eventually led to metal Core. This is how divided in and cut up the genre of heavy metal is. That's how niche it's gotten into. And again, some people will come along and be like, this sounds just like progressive metal to me. Be like, no, it's math core. Get it right. You know, that's essentially like. I just find it fascinating that people have gotten that. Yeah, yeah, that. Into the weeds. And I've seen in a couple of places, probably on Reddit or something, where people are like, this is ridiculous. Let's just take a big step back and get out of this mindset, because it's getting kind of weird.

[Host 1]

Yeah. I mean, there are definitely some genres that have subgenres, but I don't think there's anything that approaches metal even. Like, I don't know, even hip hop has a lot of subgenres, but I don't think it comes close to metal, even.

[Josh Clark]

No, no, I don't think anything does. I mean, you can basically take anything and give it several subgenre titles, suffixes or prefix, and you probably have an actual metal subgenre.

[Host 1]

Yeah, agreed.

[Josh Clark]

I just found that interesting. I appreciate you taking that little diversion with me.

[Host 1]

I love it. All right, we'll take another break here and come back and finish up the part two of the two part duology. And we're going to talk about album covers and the death of Randy Rhoads right after this.

[Chuck Bryant]

Life's messy. We're talking spills, stains, pets and kids. But with Anabe, you never have to stress about Messes again. @washablesofas.com Discover Anabe Sofas, the only fully machine washable sofas inside and out, starting at just $699. Made with liquid and stain resistant fabrics, that means fewer stains and more peace of mind. Designed for real life, our sofas feature changeable fabric covers allowing you to refresh your style anytime. Need flexibility? Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa effortlessly. Perfect for cozy apartments or spacious homes. Plus, they're earth friendly and built to last. That's why over 200,000 happy customers have made the switch. Upgrade your space today. Visit washablesofas.com now and bring home a sofa made for life. That's washablesofas.com offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

[Bob Crawford]

American history is full of wise people.

[Josh Clark]

One woman said something like, you know, 99.99% of war is diarrhea and 1% is glory. Those founding fathers were gossipy AF and they love to cut each other down.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, the show where you send us your questions about American history. And I find the answers, including the nuggets of wisdom our history has to offer.

[Host 1]

Hamilton pauses and then he says, the.

[Bob Crawford]

Greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar.

[Josh Clark]

And Jefferson writes in his diary, this proves that Hamilton is for a dictator based on corruption. My favorite line was what Neil Armstrong said. It would have been harder to fake it than to do it.

[Bob Crawford]

Listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Lithgow]

Hello, I'm John Lithgow.

[Host 1]

We choose to go to the moon.

[John Lithgow]

I want to tell you about my new friends fiction podcast.

[Josh Clark]

That's one small step for man.

[John Lithgow]

It's about Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space.

[Host 1]

You're a great pilot, Buzz. As far as I'm concerned, the best I've seen.

[John Lithgow]

That's the story you think you know. This is the story you don't predisposition.

[Chuck Bryant]

To depression, alcohol abuse and suicide.

[John Lithgow]

We'll see Buzz try to overcome demons.

[Host 1]

What do you say, Buzz?

[Josh Clark]

Another beer.

[John Lithgow]

And triumph over addiction.

[Josh Clark]

Here's to you, Buzz Aldrin.

[John Lithgow]

Good luck to you and become a true hero.

[Host 1]

Buzz and I will proceed into the.

[John Lithgow]

Lunar module not because he conquers space, but because he conquers himself.

[Josh Clark]

Buzz, we intercepted a Soviet radio transmission.

[John Lithgow]

Starring me, John Lithgow.

[Josh Clark]

Can you put it through?

[John Lithgow]

Can you translate the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts?

[Josh Clark]

Columbia.

[Host 1]

All right. Promise. Talk of album covers. I want to give a big, big shout out to a guy named Blake Massey, who wrote a really great article on themettlepit.org and also shout out Sherry Thomas from the Aquarian, because Blake wrote a really, really great piece on heavy metal album art. And basically kind of pointing out and making the case that that's where it all starts is like being in the record store, seeing this imagery. Black Sabbath kind of starting it all with just dark imagery. Very provocative stuff. A lot of times, you know, like, sometimes they would hire out just a company. But I feel like, especially with metal, many times the band is very closely involved in the vision for the album cover. Because, I mean, album covers are always important, but it feels like metal. They're even more important.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's just part of the experience, you know?

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, you buy the poster, even if you're like me and you're into Iron Maiden's poster art. Not really their music yet.

[Host 1]

Yeah, because it's legit, amazing art. I mentioned in part one, I think, about the Black Sabbath's self titled debut album in 1970. One of the most terrifying album covers I've ever seen. It's just a. It's a photograph. It's got this cloaked figure. It looks like a woman standing in front of this old, like, you know, torn down or not torn down, but just sort of dilapidated building. And this was in 1970 when, like, psychedelia and colorful album art was a thing. And it was just very, very creepy looking.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But it also said, hey, everybody, like, we're going in a different direction here. Check this out. Like, I can't imagine what that landed like. It must have just looked so different. Like, think about Led Zeppelin's album covers. The grimmest one they had was the Hindenburg explosion in black and white.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

You know, like, that was. That was as grim as their album covers got. Like, this is. This is spooky. Like, it's definitely different. I just think that's really cool. Like, to think back of just how some people must have seen this and been like, I'm reborn.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And, you know, there's a range, like, everything. You can look at something like the COVID of Number of the Beast. We already talked about the great Derek Riggs and Eddie, their mascot. But if you look at their album covers, Iron Maidens especially, they're just. They're so intricate, and there's so much to see when you sit down on your floor with your headphones on as a teenager. But they can also be a little more simplistic. Like, if you look at the great cover for Metallica's Master of puppets from 1986, you know, a little can say a lot. It's just their. First of all, you gotta have a great logo. And Metallica's logo is always great.

[Josh Clark]

It is.

[Host 1]

As is Iron Maidens. Judas Priest has always had a great logo, but it's that Metallica logo and then that cemetery with those crosses connected to the puppet strings. It's just, like, kind of chilling to see. So shout out to Metallica and Peter Minch, who designed that one.

[Josh Clark]

And we talked about. While I talked about Rain and Blood earlier, and its album cover is actually. It's art. Like, it's very clearly like a painting. I can't remember who did it. I'm not actually sure. Oh, Larry Carroll. And it's basically hell. It's just a landscape of hell. There's off to the foreground in the left. There's some heads floating in a lake of blood. There's a goat on a throne presiding over this horrible place. The Pope is wandering around wondering what the hell's going on. But it has its own style, even. It's not like. Like, if you look at Holy Diver, the Dio album cover, it's almost like it's cartoon realism, almost. This is. This is art. It's like a style of a painter that. That the Rain and Blood cover is. Which makes it even more unsettling, I think.

[Host 1]

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That Holy Diver cover is great. You know, Dio has an amazing logo. And they also have a mascot named Murray.

[Josh Clark]

Did you know that?

[Host 1]

I didn't. I guess now that I think of some DIA artwork, I realized that I've seen that masked person. I did not know that his name was Murray.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't either. He reminds me of the black spy from Spy vs. Spy. He's just not wearing the hat.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Yeah. I never really thought about that.

[Josh Clark]

I didn't either until I saw him.

[Host 1]

Yeah, just go check out the Holy Diver cover. It's great. Cause Murray is Kind of standing up behind a mountain, whipping a chain that's wrapped around a priest who's in the ocean with the waves lapping, and he's clearly struggling to stay alive.

[Josh Clark]

And Dio, by the way, he took over after Ozzy left Black Sabbath. I think it was him immediately after Ozzy, right? Yeah, it was, but he was also in another band with an album cover that we talked about before. Rainbow, their album cover for Rising, is one of my favorite. Not even just metal album covers, just album cover in general. It's got a very pretty rainbow on.

[Host 1]

Is very pretty. Guns N Roses we should talk about. I mean, so I don't really throw them in the metal crowd, but I think maybe early on, they might have been thrown in that group of hair metal. But, you know, very famously, their original Appetite for Destruction artwork was very controversial for obvious reasons. You know, trigger warning here, because it's drawn, you know, like a cartoon, but it depicts a sexual assault that's happened from a robot. And people were like, we can't put this on our shelves. Record stores were saying that. So Geffen Records was like, yeah, maybe we are going a little too far here. They put that on the inside cover sleeve and then ended up with an iconic cover as a result. That, again, it's drawn like an animated sort of drawing, but it's that Celtic cross with each band member's head at various points on the cross. And again, another great logo.

[Josh Clark]

It is. It turned out pretty good. I heard Geffen's first idea was to put a nice price sticker over the offensive painting.

[Host 1]

Is that a joke?

[Josh Clark]

It is.

[Host 1]

Okay. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me.

[Josh Clark]

Remember those stickers? The nice price.

[Host 1]

That's right. I do want to mention the one more, though, before we get to Randy Rhodes Quiet Riot, because they were the very first metal band to hit number one on the charts.

[Josh Clark]

With which one? Metal Health or Come On, Feel the Noise? Or both.

[Host 1]

Well, Metal Health, that was the album. Come On Feel the Noise was on that album.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, but they also released the song Metal Health as a single. Right.

[Host 1]

That was also on that album.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So which one reached number one first? Or do you mean their whole album reached number one? Yes, I got it. Finally, everybody, you can stop screaming at your speakers.

[Host 1]

Yeah, they're the first metal band to have a number one record. Metal Health came out and kind of changed the game, and it featured the man in the Iron mask very famously. It's a pretty cool album cover. And that guy was in the videos as well.

[Josh Clark]

I've always wanted to Play that album during seating for one of our shows. But those two songs are really the only good ones on there. The rest are just slimy. Yeah, so I've always skipped it, but yeah. Mental Health, that is a great song. Which is ironic. It's bang your head, Metal health will drag you. I think he says it just like that. It's funny. It's a very slow song. So, I mean, you can bang your head to it, but you do it very slowly.

[Host 1]

That's right.

[Josh Clark]

So, Chuck, you had said you specifically wanted to end this on a huge downer. And I think you've really knocked it out of the park with your choice to talk about Randy Rhodes and his untimely death at age 25.

[Host 1]

Yeah, I mean, I think we both had our kind of big things we wanted in here. Yours was Iron Maiden and mine was the death of Randy Rhodes because it was one of the saddest things to happen in music. Big shout out to Rex Thompson. He wrote a great piece on it for liveforlivemusic.com but Randy Rhodes was a great kid. He was a very soft spoken guy, virtuoso from the jump as a teenager. And so much so that when apparently when he was a kid practicing so much, his mom called a doctor and was like, can this hurt my son's fingies? Like, could this cause permanent damage to his little fingies?

[Josh Clark]

I read also that she was a piano player, so she must have been. He must have really been playing.

[Host 1]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

So he formed. Quite right. I had no idea about this. My only understanding of Quiet Riot was from Mental Health onward. All right, let's just be honest. It was Mental Health. That's it. Right. So he formed Quiet riot back in 1973. I had no idea that Randy Rhodes was in Quiet Riot or that Quiet Riot had been around 10 full years before Mental Health came out.

[Host 1]

He was a child basically. And same, you know, Kevin Dubrow is a singer and everything. But they signed to CBS Records. The band was kind of taking a different direction than he thought. Like, I'm better than what we're doing. And he was right. And he left the band. Left was pretty frustrated. And he got a call that Ozzy Osbourne had left Sabbath and was forming a new band. And as the story goes, he auditioned for a very hungover Ozzy Osbourne and was warming up with some scales. And Ozzy was like, you got the job pretty great.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that was it. So he became, I mean, just an absolute legend thanks to his stint with Ozzy. Right. Was Ozzy fan Just Ozzy Osbourne.

[Host 1]

Yeah, it wasn't like Ozzy Osbourne.

[Josh Clark]

Ozzy Osbourne and the Doo Wops or the Five Dimes or something like that.

[Host 1]

No, it was just him. And, you know, the saddest part about all this is that he was. He really awoke something in Ozzy and became very, very good friends with he and his wife. I guess they weren't even married at the time, but his eventual wife, Sharon, who I saw at a restaurant in LA last year, by the way. But he lived with them when he was in England and was part of the family. Basically a very playful, spirited, really nice kid and just absolute. Just Slayer on the guitar until a very, very Sad Day in 1982.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it is terribly sad. It was so unnecessary. Randy Rhodes death. And again, like, this guy's finally starting to hit the stride that he has known he could get to his whole life.

[Host 1]

He was crazy trained. You know, everyone's heard Crazy Train. That's Randy Rose.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So. And he was also, like you said, he was a good guy. Like, people just loved him. Right. So he was 25 at the time. It was the day after a show in Knoxville, Tennessee. The tour bus had made it out of Tennessee, through Georgia, safely into Florida. And they stopped in a town called Leesburg, Florida, to repair their bus, which makes sense because Leesburg, Florida is well known as the bus repair capital of Florida. And so they decided to take the whole. The whole day off. The day they were going to spend the night in Leesburg. So they were just messing around that day. And again, they had a show the night before, and everybody was either hungover or still messed up from the night before. Apparently, Randy Rhodes and Ozzy had had a. An argument backstage at the Knoxville show because Randy Rhodes was concerned about Ozzy's behavior, his drinking. He was like, you're going to die young. You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up. Ozzy didn't like that. So he stormed off. And they hadn't made up yet because Ozzy was still sleeping even, and Randy was now awake and people were messing around in Leesburg.

[Host 1]

Yeah, he was sleeping on the bus. So the bus driver, he was a former commercial pilot. His name was Andrew Acock. And there was a Beechcraft Bonanza propeller plane, a 1957 Beechcraft, on the property. And he was like, hey, I can fly that thing. Let's take it for a spin. The plane was unguarded. And so he and initially keyboardist Don Airey and tour manager Jake Duncan got on board, flew around a little Bit and landed safely. And then after that he was like, hey, anyone else want to take a ride? Young, spirited, awesome. Randy Rhodes is like, yeah, man, I'll go up there. That looks like a blast. And then the seamstress for the band, Rachel Youngblood, also boarded the plane. And while they're up there, Randy Rhodes is like, hey, Ozzy's, you know, sleeping off another hangover. Let's like buzz the bus and see if we can wake him up.

[Josh Clark]

So they did, right? They did four times. And each time Aycock, Andrew Aycock was like, I can get closer. We can do it faster. And they, they managed to do it three different times. On the fourth time, their luck ran out and I guess his wing clipped the bus. And it doesn't take much pressure to send a plane going 150 miles an hour, careening, spinning out of control. And that's exactly what happened. The plane struck the ground and slid or hit a tree. And Randy Rhodes and Rachel Youngblood were ejected, probably dead immediately from the plane. I believe Andrew Acock was left in the plane. It exploded into flames, but not before it had cruised into and taken a stop in some poor schmo's garage.

[Host 1]

Yeah, Ozzy slept through the plane hitting the bus that he was on. Somehow that explosion woke him up. And apparently emergency services weren't quick to get there. But it's pretty clear that everyone died immediately. The autopsy showed that Aycock still had cocaine in his system. And Ozzy was like, yeah. He testified that he was using coke like, well into the night.

[Josh Clark]

He was the bus driver.

[Host 1]

Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well into the night. This was the next morning. And his pilot's license had expired a long time ago. And, you know, that was it. We don't have any, like, black box recording or anything. It was just a huge loss to the music world and a huge, huge loss to the Osbourne family, who loved him so much. And Ozzy was already in bad shape and this was the beginning of a very, very bad, dark time for him.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, he said since that the Randy Rhodes death sent him spiraling down that path that Randy Rhodes had argued with him about getting off of in the first place, because like you said, they formed some sort of bond that just didn't last very long and just broke Ozzie's heart, I guess.

[Host 1]

Yeah. Super, super sad.

[Josh Clark]

It is sad. And I've been thinking, okay, how can we end this on a slightly higher note? And I've got it, Chuck. Kawaii Metal. Do you know what Kawaii Means in Japanese. No, cute. Right? So cute. Kawaii metal means cute metal. It's Japanese metal. It combines J Pop, right, with metal and it actually kind of works. So if you're curious about J Pop metal or Kawaii metal, look up the bands Baby Metal and Lady Baby. And that'll be a pretty good start down your journey into the J Pop metal realm.

[Host 1]

All right, And I want to quickly. I know I promised in Part 1, the Rolling Stone Top 10 Metal Albums of all time. So I don't want to leave that off. And I'll just quickly go through from 10 to 1. We've got Pantera with Vulgar Display of Power, Ozzy's Blizzard of Oz at nine, Megadeth Peace Sells, but who's buying at eight, Motorheads no Remorse at seven, Slayers Reign in Blood at six, Sabbath, Self Titled Black Sabbath at number five, Number of the Beasts from Iron Maiden at number four, Judas Priest, British Steel, great record. At number three, Master of Puppets at number two from Metallica. And number one with a Bullet Paranoid from Black Sabbath. And I know what you're thinking, where else is Iron Maiden? They were also at 13, besides number four with their debut record.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, I dispute a lot of that, but let's just not get into it, okay?

[Host 1]

It's a Rolling Stone list. You know how those go.

[Josh Clark]

They really. I think they're just trolls, essentially.

[Host 1]

Yeah, probably.

[Josh Clark]

Well, I think that's it, everybody. That's everything we have to say about heavy metal right now. And again, sorry we did not name check your favorite band. If you want to tell us to get into something, email us. We love that kind of thing and we hope you enjoyed this. We did the best we could. Thanks again to Livia for taking the journey with us. And since I said that, of course, it's time for listener mail.

[Host 1]

You know what, I'm gonna call an audible here. Not gonna do a listener mail. Instead, I want to shout out a book writer. I've been meaning to do this for a while and it kind of fits because I know that the author, Keith Rossen, is into some heavy music. I don't know if it's metal or what. I just know he's into some pretty hardcore music. I took a flyer on a book with a cool cover a long time ago. Finally took it on vacation. It's a duology called Fever House. And the second book is called the Devil by name. Great, great horror books. I've never read horror in my life. There's a thread of humanity and the characters in the heart of Historical stories are incredible. And then you've also got good horror stuff.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Host 1]

So recommend Fever House and the Devil by name from Keith. And then his upcoming book. I had shouted him out on Instagram. He got in touch. It's a weird kind of Instagram messaging now. And his book publisher sent me a galley of his new book out this fall. It's called Coffin Moon. This one's about vampires and it is great. And so sign up for the presale. It's just. I can't wait to read what he does next. And Keith is like a super cool guy. So Fever House, the Devil, My Name, and the upcoming Coffin Moon, which. That one's about vampires.

[Josh Clark]

Like I said, it's excellent. By Keith.

[Host 1]

Keith Rossen. R O S S O N okay.

[Josh Clark]

Since you said that, I've been trying to figure out how to shout out two horror movies that I've seen recently that are like, oh, great. These are the best I've seen in a really long time. One's Japanese. It's got subtitles. It's called Best Wishes Ringu. No, that's a good one, though. This is called Best Wishes to all. It's. It's 100 times more off the chain than Ringu. It's not as scary as the Grudge or the. The Japanese version of the Grudge. It's. It's just nuts. It's really good, though. Another one is one of the darkest horror movies I've ever seen. It's. It centers on snuff films. It's called Red Room. They do such a good job that they don't even actually show any of the videos in question. And it's more about this. This woman's descent into madness. You know, being into this kind of stuff. It's just an amazing, amazing movie. It's not for everybody, but it's. If it is for you, you will love this movie. And I think if you can just get past the weirdness and enjoy it, I think just about any anybody could. Could enjoy. Best Wishes to all.

[Host 1]

I love it. I enjoy when we throw out these recommendations. That's great.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, Chuck, that was great. That was a great end to the metal episodes too, I think. Good job.

[Host 1]

Yeah, those were fun. I feel like we could have done a part. 3, 4, 5, 6, 2.

[Josh Clark]

To be honest. If you want to get in touch with us about heavy metal or anything, you can send it via email. Send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio for more podcasts my heart radio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Host 2]

Iheart presents the Big three Playoffs this Sunday. The remaining four teams battle to make the championship in the most physical, fierce and competitive basketball league in the world. The action starts with the Big three Monster Energy Celebrity Game. Then Dwight Howard and his Ellie Riot take on Montrez Harrell and Dr. J Chicago triplets. The finale will see popular Miami 305 with stars MVP Michael Beasley and Lance Stevenson take on Nancy Lieberman's Dallas power who will make it to the big three championship. The no holds barred action starts Sunday at 3pm Eastern, 12 Pacific only on CBS.

[Bob Crawford]

I'm Bob Crawford, host of American History Hotline, a different type of podcast. You, the listener, ask the questions.

[Josh Clark]

Did George Washington really cut down a cherry tree? Were JFK and Marilyn Monroe having an affair?

[Bob Crawford]

And I find the answers. I'm so glad you asked me this question.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is such a ridiculous story.

[Bob Crawford]

You can listen to American History Hotline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[John Lithgow]

Hello, I'm John Lithgow.

[Josh Clark]

We choose to go to the moon.

[John Lithgow]

I want to tell you about my new fiction podcast, that's One Small Step for Man, about Buzz Aldrin, one of the true pioneers of space.

[Host 1]

You're a great pilot, Buzz.

[John Lithgow]

That's the story you think you know. This is the story you don't. Buzz, starring me, John Lithgow, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Host 1]

This is an iHeart podcast.