No Steppenwolf equals no Heavy Metal?

Some of you probably know "heavy metal" is taken from a lyric in Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild". So, what happens if Steppenwolf never forms? Maybe The Sparrows do a little better? Maybe Honda uses a Hondelles record for their commercial, & Steppenwolf quit before cutting a hit?

How does this change rock history? Not at all?:eek: Just a new name for "heavy metal"?

(This was inspired by the "No Freebird" thread. For the record, I've never heard "Freebird", either. And no, I hate rap.:mad:)
 
Last edited:
You would still had Blue Cheer doing Summertime Blues, and Cream with Sunshine of your Love, plus a few good tracks off of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's album besides 'Fire'

But don't forget that Iron Butterfly had Ina-Gada-Davida on an LP called 'Heavy'

All before Steppenwolf
 
You would still had Blue Cheer doing Summertime Blues, and Cream with Sunshine of your Love, plus a few good tracks off of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown's album besides 'Fire'

But don't forget that Iron Butterfly had Ina-Gada-Davida on an LP called 'Heavy'

All before Steppenwolf

Wasn't the term 'Heavy Metal' specifically invented to describe Jimi Hendirx anyway? It originated in a concert review from some New York newspaper didn't it?

I have heard people say 'Hendrix wasn't Heavy Metal' but if the term was INVENTED to describe his music...
 
Last edited:
Unless you butterfly away Motorhead and Black Sabbath then you still end up with Bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden and heavy Rock & Roll.
 
It was a moniker looking for a band to hang itself on.

William Burroughs had the idea of a hedonistic, sex and drugs and loud music "heavy metal" society in his books "Soft Machine" and "Nova Express".

If it hadn't been adopted by the rock bands of the late sixties it might easily have been plastered on to another genre like psychedelia or even punk.
 
It was a moniker looking for a band to hang itself on.

William Burroughs had the idea of a hedonistic, sex and drugs and loud music "heavy metal" society in his books "Soft Machine" and "Nova Express".

If it hadn't been adopted by the rock bands of the late sixties it might easily have been plastered on to another genre like psychedelia or even punk.

It would be cool if the term is unused into the 1980's when black musicians inspired by the industrial town of Detroit starts a new genre, IOTL "Techno" but here called "Heavy Metal". :cool:
 
kung Zog said:
It would be cool if the term is unused into the 1980's when black musicians inspired by the industrial town of Detroit starts a new genre, IOTL "Techno" but here called "Heavy Metal". :cool:
It seems to me you'd get the reverse, if the term "heavy metal" isn't coined...

It does look like *heavy metal as a style is going to happen anyhow, under another name.
 
No, nope non, nein.

The first band to be called heavy metal were The Byrds, in 1965.


Is dis?
http://www.markprindle.com/byrds.htm said:
Personally, I like the processed vocals and horns of the opener "Artificial Energy," weird song, sounds a bit dated, but it works for me. I find it kind of amusing that by 1968, the Byrds had been accused of writing songs about drugs so many times that when they actually did write an explicit (if cautionary) drug tale, no-one blinked. Rock-critic/Blue Oyster Cult producer Sandy Pearlman once claimed that he had come up with the term "Heavy Metal" while listening to this song; not that it sounds much like heavy metal, but it would be funny if the Byrds were credited with inventing yet another musical genre.

Or dis?
https://books.google.com/books?id=5...DAH#v=onepage&q=the byrds heavy metal&f=false
 
No, nope non, nein.

The first band to be called heavy metal were The Byrds, in 1965.

I was there, and then, and I never heard that.

The term "Thunder-Rock" seems to have avoided use among the myriad hyphenated rocks, and could conceivably be a synonym for your basic heavy metal.
 
It's one of those things where a dozen different people claim invention for it. "I was on the toilet in 1955, and I had swallowed some change. Then that Rock music came on and I said it sounded just like the other heavy metal. Give me money and a place in Rock history now!" I haven't researched it enough to give my opinion on who I think is telling the truth/remembers the real story. I've always heard the Steppenwolf story, and I think the phrase "heavy metal" came from an Allen Ginsberg poem or something in terms of those lyrics.
 
I do think it rather inevitable that people will keep turning up the distortion and volume to more and more ridiculous extremes making some form of heavy metal an inevitability.
However I could well see it as perfectly possible that it remains a firmly fringe thing like the more modern OTL genres of noise rock and the like.

For the record I always placed the routes of heavy metal in Black Sabbath.
 
Unless you butterfly away Motorhead and Black Sabbath then you still end up with Bands like Metallica and Iron Maiden and heavy Rock & Roll.

Yep, and it ends up being called what a lot of heavier music was called back in the day - Hard Rock.
 
My first post since 2012!

'Heavy Metal' is a term that doesn't really get used by the cognoscenti these days. "Metal' tends to be the generic term, and then there are myriad offshoots, delineations, sub-sectors and what have you. E.g. Black Metal, Death Metal, Folk Metal, Viking Metal, Pirate Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Djent, Hardcore, Grindcore, Deathcore etc etc. Here is an old video that may help with some differences: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asax9s2xmlU

Or the same vid with more accurate songs (I like the Dimmu Borgir excerpt!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvQAQKh4RIE
 
I was there, and then, and I never heard that.

The term "Thunder-Rock" seems to have avoided use among the myriad hyphenated rocks, and could conceivably be a synonym for your basic heavy metal.

Metalscream ? (c.f. Metal Hurlant, the French term for the genre)

Metalstorm ?
 
Last edited:
Top