THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 26, 1996 TAG: 9606260038
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE VANHECKE, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 97 lines
IT'S ENOUGH to break the sensitive heart of any modern-rock fan.
Metallica is not only headlining Lollapalooza, the traveling alt-rock fest, ``Load,'' the speed-metal pioneers' radio-friendly new album, entered the charts at No. 1 and is getting extensive airplay on modern rock stations nationwide.
Pantera saw their latest, ``The Great Southern Trendkill,'' debut at No. 4. ``Far Beyond Driven,'' the Dallas headbangers' 1994 album, topped out at No. 1.
Other metallers, from Anthrax and White Zombie, to old hands Kiss and Def Leppard, are blazing the concert trail this summer.
What gives? Is heavy metal, headed down a spandexed spiral since the 1980s, now gaining ground?
``Right now, it's probably at its least popular stage,'' Pantera drummer Vinnie Paul said recently, ``because the bands that were metal don't want to claim that moniker.
``People still think of heavy metal as the early '80s - leather and spikes, big hair, dungeons and dragons and all that stuff. But it's not like that anymore. It's got a street vibe, a true feeling, to it. It's not about partying and bopping chicks like it was back then.
``If you look at a lot of these bands that call themselves alternative, they sound exactly like Black Sabbath. And last time I checked, Black Sabbath were the creators of heavy metal.''
Paul hits it right on the head: The once well-defined boundaries between alternative and heavy metal - alternative and many genres, really - have blurred.
Metal has never really gone away, it's just changed its stripes. In the '60s and '70s, groups like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, fueled by testosterone and grounded in gargantuan guitars, pounded their way into the hearts of teenage males.
While the over-coiffed Whitesnakes, White Lions and Great Whites are history, Metallica, Pantera and Anthrax, thrash-metallers who grafted punk's chaotic crankiness with metal's high decibels, have decelerated their tempos, becoming more melody- and lyric-driven. They've even shorn their tresses.
Now, those bands easily meld with grunge-rockers Soundgarden, Pearl Jam and Alice In Chains (and imitators Bush and Stone Temple Pilots), alterna-radio staples who borrow reverently from the Zep-Sabbath bag o' tricks.
And metal has continued to evolve in a dizzying array of hybridizations, the '80s glam-metal of Motley Crue giving way to the gritty street-metal of Guns 'N' Roses, the funk-metal of Fishbone, the rap-metal of the Beastie Boys and the industrial-metal of Ministry, Nine Inch Nails and White Zombie.
Heavy metal' isn't cool any more so now it's called `hard rock' or `aggressive rock,' that's the term they're using in the industry now,'' said Lonn Friend, former editor of the metalhead mag Rip and now an A&R rep at Arista Records in Los Angeles.
``What's enduring is that it seems to be the only genre left where there's real musicianship still vital in the performance, where the artists can play their guitars and their drums as opposed to just banging out four chords and coming up with an alternative song.''
The metal groups that have survived - Metallica and Aerosmith for instance - have done so by redefining themselves, said Friend, a regular on MTV's now-defunct ``Headbangers Ball.''
``What was not fashionable about the metal or hard rock scene (of the '80s) was its lack of lyrical integrity,'' he said. ``The party song lost its importance in lieu of the introspective teenage-angst anthems of the grunge years.''
Locally, metal, old and new, can be heard after sundown on WKOC-FM (93.7), formerly the alternative-lite station The Coast.
``It's still a viable format, that's why we're doing it at night,'' said Perry Stone, program director at K94 and sister station 96X. ``I kind of lean away from `heavy metal music' because that may have a bad connotation with some. It's just high-energized, pure rock.''
The WKOC playlist is fairly broad - '70s and '80s arena-rockers go head-to-head with hard-rocking '90s acts - though far from encompassing. Heavy metal battle-ax Deep Purple makes the cut; the similarly weighty and aged Bachman-Turner Overdrive does not.
``It depends on image, everything is image,'' Stone said. ``BTO unfortunately does not have a very good image within the format, so a lot of the artists and the bands that we play have a different kind of image. (BTO are) just seen as schlocky kind of fat boys who never really had a cool image, and Deep Purple did.''
So with their decades-spanning mix of metal/hard rock/aggressive roc, is WKOC at the forefront of a national trend?
``We're playing a mix of gold heavy metal like Iron Maiden and Dio into new, like Sepultura, Pantera and Prong,'' Stone said. ``I don't think too many radio stations across the country are doing that. We're going for an available audience that listens at night.''
That audience is primarily a younger demographic, though not solely adolescents, Stone said.
``Usually the upper demos (adult listeners) are at home doing the cooking thing and watching television at night. Radio just does not placate to that available audience at that particular time. So you go for who is out there.
``And when we say younger demos, we don't necessarily mean just the Beavis and Buttheads. We get a lot of calls from military people who like this music. It's not just for kids.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JOE GIRON
Pantera's ``Great Southern Trendkill'' debuted at No. 4. by CNB