Went to a metal concert last year for a huge, well known band. The number of punisher/warrior, thin blue line, militia-styled ragged flag, Gadsden shirts and hats was off the charts.
In my younger days metal was anti-authoritarianism, anti-cop, anti-conformity… now these clowns are the ones who want to be holding the riot batons, the body armor, and support the very fascists we hated.
I got plenty of grey hair, the crowd around me didn’t so I’m thinking there’s a generational shift to metal going fascist.
Reading these comments is making me sweat nervously because I made an 80s-themed submod for a racing game with era-appropriate metal music, and it seems that a decent chunk of the bands I chose for the soundtrack turned out to be fascist or fascist-sympathizing 😓
Saw a random YouTuber I thought I liked do a livestream. He usually does reactionary or random updates content.
I go in and he's ragging on Biden and I see people doing SuperChats with pro-Trump messages and just casual racism. Apparently, Biden's PR person probably should have been white according to these guys. I ducked out, was quite sad.
There isn't all that much out there about Brendon Small though and what I could find he should be a decent enough person....plus I liked Metalocalypse quite a bit, so that helps me 😁
Dunno much about Bryan Beller, Nili Brosh or Gene Hoglan, just saw a few random videos with them so hard to gauge.
When I was like 13 and was learning to play guitar, I learned sooo many songs by Avenged Sevenfold. And then I saw pictures of them playing concerts with the confederate flag, and even had custom confederate flag guitars. I lived a pretty sheltered life and didn't quite understand how big of a deal that was at the time, but it definitely felt a little gross to me. I slowly stopped listening to them.
They did eventually come out and say that they regret doing that, for what it's worth. But I never went back to listening to them.
I don't think he's an out-and-out white supremacist, but one of the weirdest heel-turns ever was seeing actual Latino immigrant Tom Araya go from being the face of the evilest thrash metal band in the world to an outspoken evangelical Catholic MAGA-pilled Trump supporter.
i can remember back in the late 90/early 2000, that the right wingers pushed hard into the goth and metal scene here, looking for new recruits. it definitely felt like a targeted approach, and they did the same with the techno scene before (where they were mostly thrown out). they had more success in the folk scene, but they slowly gained ground over the last years. this sucks :-(
I would say this problem mostly exists in black metal, and blackened subgenres. Not saying it doesn't exist in other metal genres, but it's much rarer.
Related question : is OOMPH fascist ? Their song “Europa” really worried me, so I stopped listening. But I only partially understand German, so I could be mistaken ? Can someone tell me ?
Just don't worry about it. Once upon a time a couple decades ago, we didn't know anything about musicians' private lives, other than what was released through their PR managers. It was a happier, simpler time. After years of being disappointed with the people whose work I respect, I finally just started avoiding learning anything about the people themselves. Of course people who are idolized by millions of other people, have unlimited money, and are surrounded by yes men are going to be cringe in one way or another. I don't want to hear about it, I want to enjoy my music.