Inside the mind of a metal fan: what is it that makes heavy music so appealing?

I sat down with Harrison Wallace, a local musician whose passion for performing is nearly as intense as his passion for heavy metal.

Sitting in Cheltenham’s Brewhouse and Kitchen, on a sofa with those distinctive leather cracks that ever so slightly carried the aroma of stale lager, I wasn’t exactly in the headspace to have a conversation about musical beginnings. However, this was the location of choice for my interviewee, Harrison Wallace. As he walked in through the beaten wooden door, accompanied by that ever-so-familiar squeak that pub doors seem to all make as one, Harrison nodded, then remained silent – reserving his first verbal utterance for the bartender, who graciously poured him a pint of bitter. Not what I had expected, to be sure, but I found this quite reassuring that this new acquaintance and I would get on very well indeed.

As he sat, Harrison asked me the usuals. “How are you?” “Doing well?” As the quintessential Brit that I am, I reached for the only response I knew to be available in this circumstance.

“Not bad, mate. You?”

As we got talking more, our conversation flowed into casual dialogue, with my guest very keen to speak about whatever met his gaze. Which was circumstantial for me, as his eyes locked onto my shirt – or more specifically, the printed Slipknot logo across my chest. “I bloody love Slipknot!” he exclaimed, as though he had forgotten our reason for meeting in the first place.

“Metal music, mate. It’s just infectious. Once you’re in, there’s no getting out.” How right he was. As a musician himself, Harrison has always been inspired by the music which he surrounds himself with. After moving to Cheltenham in 2022, he worked his way into the well-known local band DeadHeadz – though this was no beginners luck, but in fact years of demanding work: “When I was 12, I got right into drumming. And I don’t really think that there is a genre that celebrates drummers as much as metal does, which instantly attracted me to it.” After playing the drums for four years, Harrison first picked up the guitar, which became just as important to him as the drums which he started on. “I love it. I love that my life is so music orientated, that every day I get to wake up and perform, improve myself and then listen to new material for inspiration. The cycle never ends.”

“When I first came to Cheltenham, I felt out of place. I felt like no one else was turned onto metal, like it was a genre that just didn’t exist. And anyone who was a musician was so quick to turn their nose up at the idea of heavier music – in fact, to be honest mate, that’s still the case.”

And sadly, he’s right. Heavy metal music has been the subject of much scrutiny since its start in the late 1960s. From Iron Maiden’s ‘The Number of The Beast’ starting the infamous “satanic panic” in the early 80s to the accusations of misogyny towards the deathcore subgenre (ok, those were called for), metal has never lost its ability to be the elephant in the room. So, with that in mind, why would someone listen to metal music in the first place?

“It’s just tribal man. It’s like a cult that I can be myself in, like a drug that gets better all the time. I think the best part of it, to be honest, is the amount of people who think that metal must be crap from 30 years ago. Nah man, the stuff that comes out NOW is what you want to throw on. That stuff is straight fire.”

“But does being a metalhead make you feel different, or like you don’t belong?”

“No way. I wouldn’t change it for the world.” His expression, for the first time in our meeting, turned - almost – serious. “I think that being ‘the metal guy’ in the room makes me feel so damn cool, like I’m almost the only one who understands music to a deeper level than just rap or super-edited and commercial pop. That kind of stuff has and always will bore me to death. It’s not musical, it’s just fake.”

Harrison had such an impact on me upon our first meeting. I can’t stop relaying his message of being different is cool around my head. That struck me straight away – the sheer courage of the man, daring to be different even when surrounded by people who find his style abrasive and loud. “It’s not worth conforming to anything in life, it’s too short to give a damn what anyone thinks about you.”

You can see Harrison with his band, DeadHeadz, in a music venue in the Gloucestershire area on one of their many gig nights, or by checking out their Instagram here.