At York Minster

Before I begin, I have to confess my own religious feelings, so you understand my opinion on Christian Metal. As a child I attended a Catholic primary school, and, unlike most metalheads I know, I must admit I enjoyed attending church.

We went to an old-school Catholic church, with high gothic arches and stained-glass windows. I loved the chanting and ritual and breaking of the bread – it was all so esoteric and occult. I read a lot of books about magic and witches and spooky happenings, and the church seemed to epitomize all that freaky stuff I loved.

But, most importantly, we had the kindest, most gentle priest – Father Cook – who would read passages from the bible and encourage the congregation to discuss them, offer their own ideas and interpretations. He encouraged people not to just read the bible, but to engage with it as a historical and spiritual document. He was also one of those rare, truly good men. Whenever I hear people rubbish the Catholic church, I remember him and feel like I should defend it.

As a teen, I started to make friends with many Christians, and I even spent a short period of time trying to “be” one. They were one of the vew groups who sort of tolerated me hanging around. My first best friend and my first boyfriend hung with this group (although my boyfriend was not Christian, he was weird enough that, like me, they were one of the only groups who liked him).

I spent much time in high school trying to fit in to various groups, the Christians being one of the more accepting. But I’m not a Christian, any more than I was a punk or a goth or a wiccan. I have some deeply held beliefs about gods and the nature of the universe, but I don’t want to discuss them here. Suffice it to say that I realized by the time I was about seventeen that I didn’t really want to subscribe to any specific religious order.

I still have many Christian friends – although they’re outnumbered by metalheads now – but although we disagree on religion, we share many other things in common.

I first came across Christian Metal in high school, when I started hanging around Christians in a big way. I was also heavily into metal at this time, and after my sister downloaded Kazaa onto our family computer, I was deseperately downloading every metal song I could find.

One of the local churches attended by many of my friends used to run a youth group every Friday night, and I would go on occasion. Some of the boys spotted my Metallica shirt and launched into a discussion about music. They said they liked metal too and started naming all these bands I’d never heard of, and at that stage I knew quite a lot about metal. My relationship with Christian metal had begun.

I looked up all the bands I could remember when I got home, and found them all terrible – the same nu metal drivel they played on the radio, but with happy-go-lucky lyrics about being saved. This wasn’t real metal. I remained unimpressed.

My second boyfriend (during my first years at uni) was a Christian, and I spent some time in his church, although I stopped going quickly because I disliked the more modern, evangelistic style and some of it’s biblical interpretations. I was studying Ancient Greek at the time and would love to have had a discussion about some of the bible text, the way my old Catholic priest encouraged, but this didn’t seem to be the done thing. I also disliked the silly, deliberately “modern” alternative rock music and the 40 minute lectures.

My then-boyfriend and some of his friends listened to a few Christian metal bands, and Christian hard-rock bands. He introduced me to Mortification, who remain to this day my only known example of an actual decent Christian metal band. As I got more deeply involved in metal culture, I met more and more Christians anxious to “bring me back” with suggestions of Christian metal. And I’ll give any band a chance, but none of it has ever impressed me.

Christian metal is also talked about on metal forums, which I used to frequent. Opinion divides between two camps: Christians who are metalheads, or metalheads who identify as Christians, who like Christian metal, and metalheads who are strongly against any kind of Christian metal. Their reasons are threefold:

1. Metal is the music of rebellion. Metal music primarily comes from young, middle class white males in predominantly Christian cultures. Metal speaks for generations of kids who don’t want to blindly conform to “Christian” ideals forced upon them by parents and schools. Many of these metalheads have dealt with extreme cases of prejudice and abuse in the name of metal. The idea of Christianity – whom they consider their enemy – corrupting something they hold dear sickens them. They consider it usurpation of their culture for the purpose of brainwashing people. They call it cultural misappropriation, and I can’t say I blame them.

(I’m not saying Christian ideals are bad, just that people want to be able to make up their own minds about whether they’re right for them or not.)

2. Metal deals with two main subsets of lyrical themes: larger-than-life, epic, fantasy type-themes (like slaying dragons, “fighting” for metal and shagging your way across barbarian Europe), and intense human emotions (fear, anger, pain, regret, hatred, rage).

Christian metal rarely falls into the first subset, as these “epic” themes tend to come from metal’s love of heathen, “barbarian” history and mythology, which they’re routinely tried to eradicate from the course of history. So Christian metal usually attempts to fall into the second category, but falls short because, in acknowledging a higher power, a person tends to deny their own power to influence their own future. Metal needs power – the power to stand up for what you believe in, the power to turn it up to eleven. Songs about relinquishing power just don’t appeal.

3. The majority of Christian metal just plain isn’t any good. This prejudices metalheads against it, because if you say you like Christian metal they are going to assume you have terrible taste in music (and they’re probably right ☺).

Promoting a religion, at its core, includes the practice of discriminating against other religions. This is as true for songs promoting Satanism, bhuddism, deism, or Antidisestablishmentarianism. The very nature of embracing a religion involves the denial of the others. Now, I’m not saying this is a bad thing – it’s certainly a very unique thing. And it’s not unique to religion, either. Does not embracing the metalhead subculture involve the shunning of emo?

Stryper - you'll be learning about them tomorrow :)

I noticed when I used to attend youth group and the church with my old boyfriend, there was a real fad of using youth culture to “convert” youth. I didn’t want to go and tell people about the bible, because I had been given no opportunity to fully understand it myself. I hadn’t been given any opportunity to “study” it in any kind of depth. Sure, there was lots of role-playing and group work, but it approached the bible from a “we already know the answers” point of view. I remember attending a bible-study meeting one night and I sparked a huge debate because I had a differing opinion on the text than everyone else. My opinion was essentially invalidated because I hadn’t been studying the bible since I was seven, like the others. I never went back.

Some might argue that metal has its own culture of conversion. We have hundeds of songs praising the glory of metal and essentially arguing why metal is the best form of music. But these songs aren’t written to bring more people to metal – they’re written for the people already here, to celebrate this wonderful world we’ve created. They are the metalhead equivalent of “worship” songs. They’re for us, not for the potential acolytes. No one’s going to listen to “Kings of Metal” and suddenly say “that’s it! I am now a metalhead.”

Essentially, “White Metal” is a marketing ploy, designed to repackage Christianity with distortion depals and double bass and growly vocals to make it palatable for metalheads. But as a marketing tactic, it’s ill-conceived and poorly executed – metalheads are sticklers for authenticity – they want to feel insense human emotion, they want music to give them power, not take it away. Promoting Christianity in a metal song ultimately alienates the majority of people who might be potentially interested in the song. Metalheads are put off by the Christianity, Christians by the metal. “White Metal” targets the wrong audience.

If you stop to look, metal actually has a long history of utilizing Christian themes and myths. Listen to Black Sabbath’s “After Forever”? I’ve heard songs like that sung in church. Old Testament bible stories inspire hundreds of metal songs.

After all, a large part of traditional metal (and I include power metal here, too) is about larger-than-life, epic stories. Musicians draw on various mythologies, including those they learned about in their youth. Most of these songs approach these myths as just that, myths which create inspiration of epic soundscapes.

So is it only okey to sing about Christianity in metal if you DON’T believe it?

Much of metal – and I’m talking extreme metal here – is about raw emotions, the dangerous ones lurking beneath the surface. Christians feel pain and hatred and anger and fear too. I bet lots of our favorite metal songs are actually written by people who consider themselves Christians (but don’t wish this to be overt), as well as many other religions. Once you get past all the silliness, emotions are universal. Saying to someone “Don’t write metal songs because you’re a Christian, and you don’t belong” is about as un-metal as you can get. Anyone belongs in metal, that’s the point.

I do believe, and I say this whenever I review a band, that when one listens to music, you should take do what you can to discard it from its context, and simply attempt to enjoy and analyse it for what it is. I know this is a contentious point, as my love for Burzum (the music, not the man) has shown. Some would argue separating context and text are impossible, and they’re probably right, but I think you should try. Tomorrow, I’ll be attempting just this, but conducting a no-hold’s barred review of five Christian metal albums in my collection.

Modern Christian youth culture has its own share of cliques and subcultures. I wonder what it is like to be in an overt Christian metal band nowadays. I remember my ex-boyfriend telling me stories of Mortification back in the day, when fights would break out at their concerts between Christians and non-christians. I certainly don’t see that nowadays – metalheads tend to keep their negative opinions for online forums and Facebook flames, and the concert scene is better for it.

Or is white metal not actually for metalheads at all? I certainly don’t hear of white metal bands on metal radio, or discussed on metal blogs or forums (except derisively). Is it that White Metal actually caters for Christians who want more extreme music that fits into their worldview. Is it metal for people who want blastbeats without satan?

With the rise of local metal scence throughout the more, more diverse cultures and religions are redefining metal’s themes and finding new meaning in extreme music. I remember the musicians from the Indian band Kryptos, in Global metal, explaining how one of their band members was hindu, one Christian and one muslin, but this didn’t matter. “The music unites us.” I think that’s the wisest comment yet.

With authenticity, comes solidarity. I ultimately believe metal is a force for good in the world. Metal unites people and gives them a positive force in their lives, whatever their social, political, cultural or religious leanings. Any metal band, Christian or otherwise, who attempt to use metal to promote one viewpoint to the denial of all others, won’t find much favor here.

What say you, readers? How has your relationship with Christianity – or another religion, political or cultural group – impacted your opinion on “White Metal”? Who do you think is ACTUALLY the audience for white metal?

If anyone can recommend any GOOD Christian metal bands, please list them below (My metal mixtape is looking a little sparse). If not, tell me your favourite songs using Christian mythology or your favorite bands with Christian members.

Super Snuggles and Shoggoth Kisses

Metalheads deal with rejection, just like everybody else. People online diss the music you poured your soul into, some dick at a concert calls you a poser, or you don’t get accepted into that music school you’ve been counting on.

I'm all alone. There's no one to caaaareee for me!

1. Mourn

Look, you know the world hasn’t ended, life will go on and all that, but when you plan and hope and dream about something and it doesn’t happen. You’re pretty gutted. I don’t think you should hide that. Take a day or two to be sad, or angry. Cancel your social engagements if you don’t feel like going, stay and bed and eat cashew butter (mmmm) on toast and watch Dr. Phil and yell at the television. Cry. Punch things – things that aren’t people or owned by someone else.

You get a day or two to mope and mourn a lost opportunity, then you have to get over it. Yeah, now your life isn’t going to turn out like you planned, but it could be ever better.

2. When God / Odin / Lucifcr / Osiris / Allah / the universe closes a door, he / she / it opens a window.

Maybe it’s a grubby window in the corner that doesn’t get any sun and you think “I really would have liked to just take the door, thanks”, but whenever something doesn’t go your way, it’s usually because something even better is coming up. Mother Metal always said to me when I felt depressed or downhearted that I have to remember all the other times I was rejected … and then better stuff happened. And she’s right. Yeah, it hurts now – but I don’t have the gift of hindsight to see the bigger picture.

3. Find something to learn.

Having your novel’s rejected makes you a better writer … far more so than being a success right from the first word. Being dumped by a lover makes you a better lover, if you’re willing to embrace the experience and learn from your mistakes. Everything in life teaches you something you can use to make your life better, but you have to be willing to look for it.

5. Don’t Take it Personally

I struggle with this. I take everything way to personally. I feel like a failure, like nothing I do, ever, will ever be good enough. I feel like giving up on everything.

And then I get over it. No one died, I’m not sick. I have a wonderful job and a husband who loves me and a cat who’s standing on the keyboard. Life’s pretty good, really. I’m a fucking heavy metal fucking warrior. Then i feel better :)

6. Success is about bloody hard work

I’ve found the only thing I can control in life is how hard I work. I can’t control the world around me, or people’s opinions of me, or the opportunities that come my way. But I can work, and practice, and work some more. I can push myself to be better. That’s all I can control, so I have to embrace it.

Also, when you fall on your ass and you still have the strength to be a nice person, that says something about who you truly are. So make an extra effort to be nice to others and celebrate their success.

7. Cheer Yourself Up

Read my list of 101 Ways to Cheer Yourself Up. If you’re not cheered up after doing everything on that list, I can’t help you :)

8. Metal cures all ills.

Thanks Corrine for this suggestion!

Nothing cures your ills like Slayer.

Do you have any tips for dealing with rejection? What’s the worst rejection you ever dealt with and how did you come to peace with it? What other angry / badass metal songs do you listen to when you feel rejected?

On the Fence - my corpsepaint kitties up to mischief

I am a rather over-zealous creative. as you might be aware :). Between the blog and writing and painting, my mind’s at work constantly thinking through new and random ideas. I only begin a fraction of the projects I imagine, and of those, I try to finish most of them, but I don’t always succeed.

People ask me how I find the time to create. But it’s easy, as long as you make it a priority. When I was 16 I timed how many hours a week I spent watching TV. That was an eye-opener. I cut way back on my TV time and focused that energy into writing. It’s a habit that’s stayed with me ever since.

CDH is a rather creative mind too, as evidenced by our dining room table, which is currently covered in a work-in-progress plaster model of a train layout.

I don’t need to feel motivated to create anymore. I’ve made a habit of sitting down at my computer or with my art supplies even when I don’t feel like it, and within a few minutes of beginning, the calm and euphoria settle on me, and I’m in my happy place. When you look for the first time at a creative project you’ve completed, you know how worthwhile dropping all that TV, or internet, or sex (OK, maybe not sex) was.

But, it can be a real challenge to create this habit. So, here are a few ideas to help motivate and inspire creativity.

1. Hang out with Someone overzealously creative

Maybe YOU don’t know what to do with this bubbling creative energy, but someone who’s used to turning their energy into completled projects sure does. Ask them what they’re working on recently, and as they launch into an enthusiastic monologue (with hand gestures and all!) about their latest painting concept, you’ll start to feel their enthusiam pulling you.

Ask them for their tips on your project – maybe they have a few ideas to get your momentum going again.

2. Practise Free-forming

Place in front of you: a blank sheet of paper, a pen or pencil, and a timer. Give yourself five minutes to fill the sheet of paper, with anything! Doodles, writing, smusic notes, caricatures of your friends, random, unassociated thoughts, strange patterns of scribbles. You might stumble upon something golden.

3. Drag out an uncompleted project.

Every person with even mild creative temperement has a closet full of unfinished projects. Choose one, drag it out, and finish it. Once you’ve experienced that first feeling of satisfaction, you’ll want it again and again.

4. Take a class

Community Courses abound with creative classes for a fraction of the cost of art school, taught by enthusiastic, professional artists. Most classes run in the evenings so you don’t even take time off work. CDH and I take a different class every semester – at the moment, we’re learning German, but I’ve also done Photoshop, acting and Massage, and next semester I’m doing cooking and preserves. Brush up your skills in intermediate painting or try something completely different like origami or dollshouse miniatures.

5. Enter an art competition

There’s nothing like an entry date and the possibility of a prize to spur you into action. In my youth in a small town I used to enter the local art competition every year. I never won anything, but I sold a painting once – the best thrill of my life. It’s incredible walking into a gallery and seeing your work on the walls. I’m painting like mad to enter a piece into an Arts Festival Competition in July – I am REALLY enjoying working on the piece, and sometimes you just never know what can come of these opportunities.

To find art competitions in your area, subscribe to a local art magazine, art forum, or gallery mailing list. I found out about this competition through a friend of my husband, who happens to work at the gallery. Good luck to you!

6. One of these things is not like the other

Choose two random things (preferebly two things you know a lot about) – Plato and Push-up bras, or Buddhism and Bathroom Tiles. Now, in your best academic tone, comprise a mini essay comparing the two things. Creative academia thrives on finding meaning where there was no meaning at all, and this exercise (which I made up, by the way, because most of my university essays read like this: “Socrates and Monty Python”, “Mesopotanian Funerary Customs and Zombies”, etc. (got an A on the Monty Python one, A+ on the Zombies one).

7. Join an Online Forum

Nothing like collective creativity to get you motivated. I’ve recently joined a steampunk forum, and seeing them post their amazing mods and paintings and digital art has directly inspired my latest forays into steampunky illustration.

For handmade crafters, I like craftster, or even the Etsy forums. For writers, I really enjoy the community at Forward Motion for Writers.

8. Give yourself a challenge

I work at my best when I’m racing to meet goals – whether they’re deadlines imposed by others, or arbitrary goals imposed upon myself. I give myself a deadline to complete a specific challenge – a challenging goal without being ridiculously beyond me. For example, I don’t have the time to dedicate to creating a new piece of art every day, but I set myself a May goal to create one new original artwork every week, and I did it. I’ve made the same goal for June, as I have a craft show at the beginning of June and I need new pieces to sell.

9. Create fan art (and send it to your admired)

Most musicians, actors, writers and artists love receiving fan art of themselves and their characters. Because of copyright purposes, sometimes people can’t look at fan art – their website should tell you whether they will be able to look at your work or not. Lots of celebrities share fan art on their websites – you might get a mention.

Also, even just sending a piece of artwork to a celebrity can result in amazing things. I’m sending a set of postcards to Annete Ozlen of Nightwish – I am hoping she’ll blog about them and maybe a few other people might like my art, too.

10. Draw / Write / Sing your fantasy life

Sometimes, if you want your life to be more creative, you have to live as though it already is. What would you do if you were a full-time artist? What would you di if you had a highly successful blog? Do that anyway.

11. Invite Fellow Creatives to an Working Party

Among my group of friends we have several writers, a couple of painters, and some stunning musicians. I’ve been to two working parties in the last year and they really get the creativity flying. Ask everyone to bring a plate of food to share, a CD of their favorite music and a project they’re working on. Make sure you choose a room with enough space and can find enough powerpoints for the writers and their laptops. pop some music on and work away like busy bees, occassionally stopping to read out a paragraph or ask an opinion on a color.

We also break up the day with fun, five minute creative challenges – write a poem using a specific formula in 5 minutes, write something using three random words in five minutes … you get the idea.

12. Wear clothes that inspire you.

Whoever said “clothes maketh the man” knew more than he let on. I am a huge believer in letting what you show on the outside reflect who you want to be on the inside. So get creative – you don’t have to buy new threads, but reinvent your favorite old jeans, dresses and skirts into unusual looks – layer with clashing colours, wrap scarves through your belt loops, add your favorite jewelry. Getting creative with your outfit first thing in the morning sets you up to be creative all day long.

13. Dedicate one wall in your house to items that inspire you.

I decorate the walls of my studio with artwork, photographs from some of the happiest moments in my life, poems and words that fill me with joy and hope an longing. Everytime I’m in need of a little inspiration, I just need to look around me.

14. Send a handmade valentine

You don’t have to find a secret admirer – even a friend or relative will appreciate a heartfelt, handcrafted valentine extolling their virtues. Use whatever mediumm you like – write them a poem, compose a song, draw them a cartoon, make a card …

15. Write a tutorial and sent it to a magazine

Magazines like Painting and Stampington love receiving tutorials for simple and unique crafts – and yes, they’ll pay you for them. You might find the process of submitting and publishing craft articles so addictive you just can’t stop. This is something I’m hoping to work on more this year, when I’m not so bogged down with copywriting work.

16. Join a Collective / Creative Group.

Local community art collectives can provide you with some great inspiration and opportunities. Active collectives meet regularly, and plot and plan how to take over the world togehter. Collectives also produce group exhibitions, edit anthologies or record jam sessions.

17. Create Guerrilla Art

Hang your artwork where people will see it – on lamp posts, at the bus station, on the sides of buildings. Draw pictures on the sidewalk, make sculptures at the park – just make it surrepticious and don’t get caught!

18. Embrace a Different Religion (even if only for a little while!)

And I mean really embrace it. Try to become a person who could believe in whatever. Read the teachings, find the inner truth inside all the dogma – there’s always a great lesson to learn.

19. Write a To-do list

Make it super-creative, and have fun. Now get to and start doing it! Use my Guide for Writing To-Do lists to help you get started.

20. Go for a Walk

Leave your house, turn right, and keep walking until you no longer know where you are. I love walking around the neighbourhoods, because I find these odd little spaces I never would otherwise know – a tiny cemetery, a creaking, abandoned park, a garden in the middle of a roundabout.

21. Apply for a Job you’re not qualified for

Either a job completly unsuited to your skill base of a job you’d adore but seems WAY out of your league. Write the most outrageously creative resume and application imaginable. Hell, if nothing else, you’ll make the recruiter’s day. And sometimes, you just never know where a little creativity can get you.

22. Try Stand-Up comedy

Everyone has a little funny in them. If you’re one of those people who is always being told how funny you are, why not give stand-up a go? It’s a concept completly outside most peoples’ confort zone, which is what makes it so awesome. I speak from experience here, as I’ve performed stand-up routines both in a comedy club and in a theatre to about 500 people. And yes, they all laughed, and it was the most fantastic feeling in the world.

Whether you succeed, or you’re just a big flop, getting up on stage to do stand-up is one of the bravest thigns you can ever do.

23. “Art” busk

Paint portraits for $1. Write limericks for 50c. Sing a song for a smile. Create impromptu art for people on the street. (Just check the area you plan on busking in, as some streets require a license).

24. Dance

Put some music on and just let your body do what it wants to. Shut the door so your flatmates can’t laugh. A great way to loosen up before beginning a creative activity.

25. Write an article for a blog

There are so many blogs online nowadays you’re bound to find one that speaks to your fellow creatives. Write an article for them, on a subject they are interested in, ask a question, include a video and lots of picture …

Why write an article for a blog? You get instant recognition and communication about your subject. Enjoy the kind of heated discussion blog comments usually involve. (I’m always keen to showcase guest writers if you’ve ever wanted to write for Steff Metal – hint, hint :))

What other ways can you think of to spark and inspire creativity?

Yours with plaster glue on my fingers

I have moved to a new city to study, and left my friends behind. I love the university and all my classes and lecturers, but I feel very lonely and isolated here – it seems as if everyone in my hostel is already friends, and I don’t know anyone. I would love to make some new friends – especially with metalheads – but I’m shy, and I don’t really know how to do this. Help!

***

You have no idea how uncannily similar your situation is to my first year experience of university. I had spent so much time being excited about leaving my small town for the big smoke, that I hadn’t prepared myself for the grueling task that is attempting to make friends. When you’re shy, (and when you have a visible eye problem) attempting to turn strangers into mates can seem like some kind of arcane and un-natural torture. It’s even more difficult when you’re trying to insert yourself into an established “scene” where everyone already has friends and seem wary of “try-hard” newcomers.

Making friends ain’t easy. Making friends with metalheads can be an even bigger challenge. You set yourself up for all kinds of new and unknown humiliations, awkward silences and psychotic stalkers. But, when you finally make that personal connection with someone, you realize it’s all been worth it.

With millions of metalheads all over the world, you're bound to find SOMEONE to be your friend.

Put Yourself in Likely Places to Meet Interesting People

University is an absolutely hive of interesting people. This is because – in New Zealand anyway – when high school fnishes, a lot of kids stay on the farm wrking for their parents, or go to the local meatworks, or work at Caltex to fund their OE. The kids who go to uni from the small towns tend to be there for similiar reasons to you.

How do you find them? In my first year, I joined and subsequently dropped a lot of different clubs – this is cool – it’s totally OK. You don’t have to stick with a club – most of the new recruits drop out once their first essay deadline rolls around. But if you’ve ever wanted to try rock climbing or you think the role playing society looks like a hoot, find their booth and sign up, and then go to their first meeting and talk to some of the regulars. You’ll quickly suss out if they’re you kind of folks.

Choose subjects that genuinely interest you, show up to all the classes and tutorials, and strike up discussions with other students. Chances are, if you’re taking “Ancient Sumarian Texts 101″. they probably have at least a passing interest in Ancient Sumarian texts – hey look, you’ve already got something in common!

Go to gigs and clubs and shows and movies, even if you have to go by yourself. I ALWAYS strike up conversations with people next to me in the mosh pit. Sometimes you have an hour to wait between bands, so you might as well spend it talking to someone. I met my last boyfriend in a mosh pit (I’m not telling you which band, because it’s rather embarrassing and not very metal).

Also, find the local metal forums and keep up-to-date with the local “scene”. You don’t have to participate (some of the online forums can be quite intimidating), but – if nothing else – you’ll learn a few of the main players and which bands everyone thinks are worth supporting.

Some of my amazing friends at my 25th steampunk birthday. I love you guys!

Be Interesting

This First and Second points tend to flow from each other. Basically, if you met some totally bodacious metal chick at your hostel, and she seemed interested in talking to you, and you said “Oh, well, you know, I’m not really into muh. Just metal and beer, really.” That’s not very interesting. I don’t know if I’d hang out with you if I thought you didn’t have a thought in your head apart from “how many JD’s can I skull tonight?”

You’re at university! In a giant, bustling city full of interesting things! You have no job, no responsibilty! You are free! Don’t waste all your time holed up in your room. Take the train to a random place and go exploring. Join clubs, see shows, explore! Come back with a story to tell.

Write yourself a list of 100 personal challenges for the year, everything from “Get an A on a paper” to “Save $1000 for OE” to “See an erotic french film” to “learn archery.” Try to accomplish one per day.

The gym at my uni ran a series of inexpensive ($40 a term) beginners classes in various subjects. I took acting, massage, brazilian jiujitzu, salsa, yoga, and Goju Rhu karate – then I studied karate for another three years. The bookshop on Queen Street ran regular writers meetings and I used to go down and read work and talk to other creative people. I helped a friend found the JRR Tolkien Society, and I met an incredible group of amazing literary friends. I joined the archaeological soceity, and got the first glimpse of my future husband (the then Iron-Maiden shirt and hot English Accent President of said society.)

Be Prepared to Shoot and Fail

You will walk up to people and introduce yourself and they will shrug and walk away. You will embarrass yourself utterly on the first day. You will run out of things to say and nervously stare at your feet. You are not alone.

It’s hard not to beat yourself up about these failures. Go home, shut yourself in your room, listen to “Courage” by Manowar and remember that you’re awesome and it’s only a matter of time till you find someone who thinks so, too. And write me a letter – I can totally empathize.

Don’t Assume Just Coz Everyone is a Drunken Idiot, that They are, In Fact, a Drunken Idiot

I am so guilty of this. I lived in a hostel my first year at uni and I hardly socialised with anyone at all. I would arrive home from uni and find half my floor drunk in the common room and I just thought it was dumb, so I didn’t bother.

At the end of the year, I read through the yearbook, and realized “hey, some of these people seem really cool. I wish I’d tried a little harder to get to know them.” I hate having regrets, even small regrets like that. Don’t waste opportunities. Go to the hostel events – you can always make an excuse and leave if you’re uncomfortable, but go. Remember, they’re probably judging your Cynic t-shirt just as much as you’re judging their Abercrombie and Fitch jeans and stupid pink “alcopop” drink.

If you see an Interesting-Looking Person, Say Something to Them

Yesterday, a girl sat down next to me on the bus, and she was carrying a HUGE bunch of white calla lillies. My sister had Calla lillies in her wedding bouquet. I asked her about them and we had a really interesting conversation about lillies and Victorian mourning practises (the flowers were a birthday present from her boy). Now, we didn’t exchange numbers, but we could have. You just never know.

I make a habit of throwing the goat to anyone I see wearing the shirt of a band I like. I tell people I like their shoes, or if someone’s standing in line at my café not sure what to order, I give them a recommendation. 99% of these little interactions result in absolutly nothing except helping someone our or making their day a little brighter, but sometimes, they turn into real, genuine connections.

I met one of my closest male friends because he came up to me before an archaeological dig and boldly introduced himself, mentioned he’d seen me in class and understood I was a metalhead. I was so struck by his openly forward but friendly nature we hung out pretty much non-stop for a week. He’s awesome and still a close friend (Hi Ryan!)

Talk the Talk

So, you’ve followed all the advice above and you’re actually talking to a real, live metalhead! Now what do you do?

Make eye-contact. I struggle with this, because of the wobbly eye, and also because most metal boys are hot and if I think someone is hot I get embarrassed and my ears go red :) But eye contact + smiles = body language for “I think you’re cool. Let’s be friends.”

Ask questions. Ask them what they think of the band, how often they come to this club, what they do when they’re not at the club / in the juice bar / making sandwiches at Subway.

Remember, us subcultural types have very set and specific opinions about music, art, movies, fashion and culture. It’s hard, but try not to alienate people by telling them their favorite band is crap. Instead, engage them in a discussion – say “I’ve never been a fan of HIM, because I think all the songs sound the same. But Vile Valo sure can sing. I also find it weird that they’re classed as metal. Do you consider them metal?” Now you can have a discussion instead of offending the cute girl with the heartogram tattoo. (I tend to stare well clear of heartogram tattoos myself, just a friendly warning.)

Be Genuine

I probably don’t need to say this, but don’t make shit up to sound cool, because it always bites you in the ass. Instead of trying to be cool, just go and be cool. Go and do all the stuff you wish you’d done. Cultivate a lasting friendship with yourself, because you have to spend a lot of time hanging out with your own mind, so make it fun.

There’s no point pretenting to be someone else, because any friends you make will be attracted to THAT person, not you. Find people who like you for who you are. By all means, use people you admire as inspiration – I would sometimes “pretend” to myself I was confident when I talked to people. I had a very confident friend and I would say to myself “I am her right now”, and that can help, but don’t try and BE someone else. I’ve been on the receiving end of that and I tell you – not fun.

Your Momma was right – be yourself. That’s all you can do. All the rest will come with time and practice.

If all else fails, write to me. I can always do with new friends. If you read this blog, I already know I like you :)

Basically, making friends with metalheads is exactly the same as making friends with anyone else – you put yourself in a place where metalheads are likely to hang out, you try to look approachable and happy. You smile and make eye contact and ask questions and get people talking, and you watch and listen and feel for that “click” of a connection that makes you think “Yeah, this person has SO got to be in my life.” And tell them that – maybe they’ll be flattered.

Any other advice from readers on making friends with metalheads or other alternative types?

Elena Bathory

First, for a bit of background, can you tell us about how you got started as a model?

I have always wanted to be a model since I was a kid. As I got older I relaized I wasn’t a candidate for the typical model. I started getting into the alternative scene and came across some modeling pages on myspace for alternative models. I got so excited and started planning out a shoot right away.

You’ve worked with some pretty big bands – Dark Funeral, Skeletonwitch, Verkrag – can you tell us how you managed to hook that up? What’s it like working with bands?

Well, with Dark Funeral I was one of two winners of a merchandise modeling contest for the band. I also won the Devian metal model contest. With Verkrag, Anton, the man behind Verkrag, contacted me on myspace to be a part of his “13 victims” project. I started with Skeletonwitch just by asking them if they would like me to model their merch. I actually was supposed to work with them last year when they shot a music video at this metal bar here in Brooklyn. They had wanted a girl to dance on the bar during their performance and someone contacted me from the bar to do it but I had to work that day. So, I was glad I was eventually able to work with them after missing that opportunity.
It’s great working with bands! I love supporting the metal scene and the bands.

What have been some of your favorite modeling jobs / shoots?

Some of my fave modeling shoots are horror shoots. I love getting all bloody and posing with sharp objects lol. When I shoot horror I can become a completely different person. I can be a psycho killer or a helpless victim. It’s really fun! My fave modeling job of recently has been a beach shoot for an alternative clothing designer, Isabelle Batz, new swimsuit line. It was a chilly day but I had fun and it was exciting.

Do you have any modeling horror-stories?

Hmmm well once I did a rooftop shoot with this photographer who kept talking about how much of a sex addict he was and just talking about things that were inapropriate. As if that would impress me or something lol.

Elena Bathory

How do you think TV shows like America’s Next Top Model have helped, or hindered the modeling industry, in particular the alternative modeling industry?

I think it has helped the modeling industry in a way. That show gave ordinary girls a chance to become actual models, which I think is cool. I just think they should have a similar show for alternative models. They probably will when I’m too old and wrinkly to participate lol.

You shoot nude shots for conceptual art. Can you tell us how you got into that? How do potential clients react to you nude shots? What, in your opinion, separates artwork featuring nude women from pornography?

I got into it very early in my modeling career. My work was seen by a fetish art photographer who wanted to include me in his upcoming book. At that shoot I also shot with another photographer who included me in his book as well. They are called “upskirts, and panties, and girls, oh my” by LC Misfit studios and “Rebound” by David Lawrence, in case anyone wants to check that out;)

Potential clients react well to my nude shots. They see that I am open minded and comfortable with my body and photographers enjoy working with models who are confident about themselves.

What seperates artwork featuring nude women from pornography is, artwork explores the beauty of the naked body and pornography focuses on the act of sex.

You now model full-time. That’s a dream-come-true for many models. Can you tell us how you’ve managed to get to this point?

I don’t really model full time. It’s not like I’m travelling the world and shooting everyday. I would love to travel to places like the UK and do runway shows and stuff. That’s when you know you’re a hugely successful alternative model, when you’ve got jobs on the other side of the world and appearing on the cover of alternative magazines. Hopefully I am on my way there! I have good months and bad months with work. I am working on my own website so hopefully once that’s up I will be noticed more and offered more jobs.

You’ve also recently launched your own clothing line “Metal Vixen Threads”. Tell us a little about how “Metal Vixen Threads” started and what you’ll be doing with the line in future?

I started MVT of October of last year. I just wanted to create a casual line especially made for metal girls that they can wear at concerts or wherever else they want to show off with pride that they are a metal chick. I just added some mens t-shirts too.

Elena

I love your clothing line because I don’t think there’s enough casual fashion out there specifically for metal chicks. Goth chicks yes. Punk chicks, yes. But not metal chicks. Any thoughts on why this is?

They are out there, my line is more casual and laid back than those out there.

As an “alternative” model, you probably deal with some negative reactions when you tell people what you do. How do you cope with doing something for a career many people consider “vulgar” or “satanic” or “weird”?

I really don’t care if others see what I do in that way. If they find it weird or whatever then that just shows me that they are not open minded and can’t appreciate art in all forms.

What advice would you give to anyone else wanting to become a metal model?

Get yourself noticed by bands. Work with as many bands as you can to get noticed.

What’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you because of modelling?

The best thing that’s ever happened is making new friends with cool people who support me and my work. I wouldn’t be where I am now without the people I have met along the way.

What is the next step for Elena Bathory?

The next step is my membership website;p There you will be able to see exclusive photos and sets not seen anywhere else plus videos of photo shoots and more. There, fans can also purchase posters and other Elena Bathory merchandise. I will also be working with more metal bands and appearing on a few album covers. I will also be appearing in an upcoming issue of Bizarre magazine as an ultra vixen and some of my photos will be featured in Girls and corpses magazine next month.

What was the first album you ever brought? Your first metal album?

Slayer’s Hell Awaits!

Can you name your top five metal albums?

Hard to narrow it to just five. Hell awaits, Black album, The somberlain, Chaos A.D., Iowa

What bands and albums have you heard recently that have stood out to you?

One band that I can really say have greatly caught my interest is Skeletonwitch. Their new album Breathing the fire is awesome! I have done merch work for them and will be doing more soon:)Another band that I have done merch work for that the music has stood out to me is Wrath Passion. A great Norwegian black metal band. The new Deftones album is good too.

What was your best ever live music experience?

Iron Maiden a few years ago at Madison square garden. I was really far from the stage but it was still awesome!

Who or what inspires you?

Metal inspires me a lot as well as horror movies. As for a person, I really like the alternative model Masumi Max. My fans also inspire me. They make me want to be the best I can so I can give them the best.

Thank you Elena for stopping by to answer some questions. It’s always great seeing metal chicks rocking their own thing. You can find out more about Elena Bathory by becoming her fan on facebook, checking out Elena’s model mayhem page, her Elena Bathory Myspace page, or keeping an eye on her up-and-coming website:

Peace, Love, and Fucking Metal

Folk Metal Week would not be complete without an exploration of Folk Metal Fashion. So without further ado, I present you the Haute Couture of folk metal fashion.

Basically, the idea of folk metal fashion to choose a folk culture that interests you and is considered suitably “metal”, research their cultural traditions, discard everything that isn’t “grymm”, then bastardise what remains into a hustorically-inaccurate mashup of arcane symbolism and dragon t-shirts.

Clothing

Now, any aspiring folk metaller – be they lad or lass – has two choices for their folk-metal persona. They can either follow the path of the folk musician, or follow the path of the re-enactor.

If you want to go for the first option, you take fashion cues from these fine fellows:

Ian Anderson at the Isle of Wight festival, wearing some kind of dressing gown

Don't they look swell?

Irish folk band Altan

You need a black suit, a dressing gown, and some kind of weird instrument. I don’t think it’s necessary to know how to play said instrument.

Alternatively, you can go the way most metalheads go, and look like this:

Grymm

Your first step is to find a folk tradition to embrace. Look to your own country’s folk traditions for inspiration. If you’re not from Europe, this is not a problem. I’ve yet to see any Mongol or Maori-inspired folk metallers, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

If you don’t have a folk tradition, or your folk tradition sucks, start researching Vikings.

(Or Celts, or Germanic tribes. Or Mongols. But Vikings are sooo “in” right now)

Go to the library and check out books with lots of pictures. Look on Wikipedia – the source of all truth and knowledge. Find websites dedicated to folk cultures and study up on their traditions and beliefs.

I can hear you all groaning from here. Research? For fashion? She’s crazy. But hear me out, if you want to dress like a folk metaller, you have to obtain at least a passing knowledge of traditional folk cultures. Lots of metalheads are extremely into this stuff and will require you to defend your choice of getup with references to archaeological finds and contemporary texts. Or challenge you to a drinking bout. Either way, it’s best to be prepared.

Once you’ve completed your preliminary research, you need to source some basic wardrobe. Choose natural fabrics – wool, leather and fur – to protect against those harsh barbarian winters. First, a pair of trousers: your staple basic black jeans or pants will suffice, or you can go even further and find a historically-accurate pair of leather or wool pantaloons that close with a drawstring rope. Layer these monstrosities with a pair of epic boots – leather, of course, and a suitably period tunic, shirt, or vest. Or just go bare-chested with tribal tattoos – it works for the dude in the photo.

The woollen cape or cloak is preferrable to any kind of jacket, and gives a certain dramatic flourish to the folk metal outfit. I must stress that this cloak should be made of thick wool and double as a blanket – a lot of shops sell these cheap polyester blend capes. Wear one of those on a windy day and tell me you don’t want to fork over the extra money for wool.

Ladies either don their own pantaloons and boots, or find themselves a barbarian dress. You can buy these at any good medieval store or market, or though any of the multitude of online shops. While a black dress is always better, folk metal welcomes to use of other dark colours, so red, green, brown or blue dresses or accents work too.

If you wish to venture out in folk metal garb during the summer months, you could chose a lighter cotton shirt. And metal men, folk metal is the only metal genre with which you can get away with wearing a skirt, as long as it looks like this:

CDH rockin' his Wacken kilt.

“Ah, but Steff” I hear you ask, “How do I hold up my epic viking pants or kilt of doom?” Well, friends, you will probably need to invest in a suitably viking or folk-looking belt. Like this:

Viking Belt from Jell Dragon

or this:

Hair

For men, hair is worn long and unkempt. Beards are thick and bushy and often plaited with wool and beads.

For women, hair is worn long and unkempt. Beards are optional (but not uncommon).

Accessories

Accessories should be leather, horn, bone or metal, preferrably handmade and hand-forged by trollish re-enactors. Try to find accurate representations of actual archaological finds – one of the best places to find amulets, Thor’s hammers, replica coins and Gallic broaches is actually museum stores – I brought a gorgeous Anglo-Saxon replica coin (a cast of one found on the premises) from the Ashmolean Museum shop in Oxford for £1.50.

Replica Thor's Hammer pendant - original found in Romersdal on the island of Bornholm (www.wulflund.com)

Hair accessories for ladies can really complete an outfit. Again – find pieces made from natural materials and utelising traditional crafts. I recently brought myself one of these:

Raven barrette, $25US, from WInged Talon. This is so much more detailed in real like.

No folk metal outfit would be complete without the requisite drinking horn. You can buy these horns online, or from any store at a metal or medieval market, like Wacken:

Wacken drinking horns

For the complete drinking horn experience, you will also need a leather pouch to attach your horn to your belt, and a fold-away iron stand that allows you to set down your horn on the ground (tables are far too civilised) without upsetting the liquid within.

To call forth your fellow Vikings, Mongols, Saxons or Gauls, you need a summoning horn (I made that name up). You must practise the summoning horn for many hours, because when it is played by the untrained summoner it sounds like an elephant farting.

Weaponry

Folk metallers – like the LARPers of which they are so often confused – often carry weaponry suitable to their specific folk tradition.

Generally this practise is frowned upon because – a. It looks too try-hard, b. Weapons and drunk metalheads do not a sensible mix make and c. 98% of people don’t know how to correctly and safely use a weapon, and the ensuring looks of disdain from the people who actually look at historical martial arts as a serious academic discipline could melt stone.

Since some people have asked, I use a two-handed German longsword, using Talhoffer’s manual, and I made my own sword belt. I don’t fight in tournaments because I believe the rules imposed to make the tournaments “safe” (no head hits, etc) altar the style of fighting to the point when you’re no longer fighting in a recognisable historical style. We take a very academic approach to european martial arts – one day a week we all sit round with the manual, translate the text and study the pictures to figure out what is actually being shown. One day a week we fight. One day a week we do wrestling – since a good sword fight will always end with a wrestle :)

If you’re not a fighter, your probably a minstrel, so be sure to carry some kind of unqiue folk instrument everywhere you go (tin whistle players, represent!). You don’t have to play this instrument – simply the threat of playing it earns you folk metal scene points.

Style Icons

Eluveitie

turisas

Finntroll

Ensiferum

Korpiklaani

Plunder

Wulflund: My absolute favorite online shop for quality armor, swords, and pagan jewelry. It’s run by a metalhead called Milan – the coolest dude from the Czech Republic – and we brought the swords, broach pins and my Thor’s Hammer from there.

Jell Dragon: another shop for all your Viking and Saxon needs.

Winged Talon: Leather hair accessories.

Batwings and Battleaxes: “Viking” metal wrist cuffs

What do you wear when you want to look suitably “folkish?” What folk traditions particularly speak to you?
Raise your horns! \m/
Steff Metal

“I would crawl through the mud, bro­ken glass and pos­si­bly the piss ditches to see these bands. As long as I didn’t spill my beer.”

Yes, metalheads can – and have – endured the infamous piss ditches with a smile, as long as they have a pint in hand and something to headbang to. But when we adopted beer as the metalhead drink of choice, did we realise we joined a long and noble lineage of beer-drinkers?

Any substance containing carbohydrates has the potential to ferment and become beer – so variations of beer would have been invented independently throughout the ancient world. 10 000 years ago humans stopped wandering the forest and started thinking “You know what? Here’s a nice field. I could totally live here for a few years. I could even build a little hut. With a roof. And maybe a room for all my women. What luxury! All the other ape-humans sure will be jealous.”

They started planting crops and baking bread. Some archaeologists believe bread was originally baked not as a food product, but a convenient way to carry around the means of brewing beer.

an Egyptian servant girl pouring beer.

No one people can claim the invention of beer. A caveman on a pub crawl would taste a different beer in every region. From the Sumarians (who occupied the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers including the cities of Babylon and Ur) we get the first ever recorded recipe for beer.

“You are the one who soaks the malt in a jar
The waves rise, the waves fall…
Ninkasi, you are the one
You are the one who holds with both hands the great sweet wort…
Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat,
It is [like] the onrush of Tigris and Euphrates”

Other texts describe the effect of the drink as making people feel “exhilerated, wonderful and blissful!”

The Alulu tablet - found in the Sumerian city of Ur - displays a reciept for "best" beer.

Here’s a sampling of ancient beer:

5000 years ago, Chinese civilisations brewed a beer known as kui.

Egyptian Pharoahs downed mugs of beer made from barley bread. Egyptian beer – like everything else in Egypt – played an important part in religious ceremonies. Egyptian Doctors prescribed beer as a cure for many common ailments. A medical document of the 1600 BC lists the prescriptions for 700 ailments, over 100 of which include the word “beer”.

The Egyptians were the first known culture to begin recording dates for batches of brew to judge fermentation time, as well as devising a rating system for beer.

A Victorian scholar with the metal name of James Death postulated an unpopular but not discreditable theory that the “manna” God sent from heaven for the Israelites was actually a bread-based, porridgey beer called wusa.

The Kalevala – the Finnish Epic poem collected in written form in the 1800 but comprising an ancient oral tradition – devotes more lines to the origin and brewing of beer than to the origin of humanity.

In many ancient societies, brewing was a task for women, usually priestesses.

Pacific and South American brewing practises include chewing the grains and spitting them into the fermentation vessel, where the human saliva produces converts starch into fermentable sugar.

Ancient beers were normally made from fermented bread, and had the consistancy of porridge. The Sumarians used drinking straws to slurp up the beer so they wouldn’t accidentally eat the bitter hops. I know – that sounds like just what you need after a hard day of cultivating – a bowl of fermented bread pulp. Yum.

A Babylonian Tablet describing the brewing process (c3100BCE)

Although beer was brewed in Greece and Rome, both preferred wine, and writers like Tacitus wrote about the disagreeable taste of the beer brewed by the Germanic tribes. It was during the Classical period that wine gained its reputation as a refined, upper class drink, and beer because associated with the lower classes and hoi barbaroi.

Incidentally, with Christianity came more beer. As part of their mission to provide food, drink and shelter, Monks set up breweries in the monastries and were the first to turn brewing into a recognisable trade. St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Nicholas and St. Luke the Evangelist were all patron saints of brewing.

A 13th century Dominican priest, Jofroi of Waterford, wrote an elaborate catalogue of all the beers and wines of Europe, which he apparently described “with great relish” and gave recommendations for scholars and counsellers.

Because the purity of water could not be guaranteed, most people drank some form of alcohol (which had been boiled at some point of the brewing process) with every meal. Beer was the most popular drink in Europe throughout the Middle Ages, but because the doctors and physicians had been trained in Classical thought – they considered beer extremely unhealthy:

“But from whichever it is made, whether from oats, barley or wheat, it harms the head and the stomach, it causes bad breath and ruins the teeth, it fills the stomach with bad fumes, and as a result anyone who drinks it along with wine becomes drunk quickly; but it does have the property of facilitating urination and makes one’s flesh white and smooth” The Aldobrandino of Siena – 1256

Along Came Hops

Beer made with hops was perfected in Germany in the 13th century, and the Germans started a medium scale export of this longer-lasting beer to the rest of Europe. Making beer with hops became popular in Holland in the 14th century and England in the 15th century. The English government declared laws to enforce the use of hops in beer. The English peasants – convinced adding hops destroyed the taste of beer – rose up and rebelled against this law, but were brutally put down.

And you can probably guess the story from here: industrial revolution = large-scale brewing apparatus = increase in beer production = more drunk Englishmen = football hooligans and chavs.

And metalheads. Who drink more beer per capita than chavs. And have more fun. And listen to better music. And we aren’t sleeping with our sisters.

Are we?

Drinking horn

Steff Metal’s Favorite Beers

Please beer (haha) in mind I am a wussy girl and much prefer met and cider to beer.

Schlossbrau
Corona
Excaliber
Pirate Ale (tastes like shite but it has a picture of a pirate on it)

Best Beer-Drinking Folk Metal Songs (and a couple of non-folk metal drinking songs, for good measure):

Korpiklaani – Beer Beer
Skyclad – Another Drinking Song
Korpiklaani – Happy Little Boozer
Alestorm – Wenches and Mead
Ensiferum – One More Magic Potion
Korpiklaani – Wooden Pints (are you noticing a trend here?)
Tankard – The Beauty and the Beer
Korpiklaani – Let’s Drink!
Finntroll – Trollhammaren
Turisas – One More!
Tankard – The Empty Tankard
George Thorogood – One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
Scurvy – The Grog Song
Metallica – So What? (cover)
Dropkick Murphys – Kiss Me I’m Shitfaced
And Manowar – Brothers of Metal.

Deities of Beer:

We should pour libations in their honour, you know.

Osiris – inventer of beer in Ancient Egypt.
Dionysos and Sinenus – Greek gods of beer and wine and drunken debauchery.
Bacchus – Roman god of beer and wine and drunken debauchery.
Siris and Ninkasi – Babylonian goddesses of beer.
Gambrinus – the mythical Flemish king who supposedly invented beer.
Tezcatzontecatl – Aztec god of inebriation. One drink for everyone who incorrectly pronounces his name.
Radegast – the God of hospitality and beer in the Czech Republic.
In Norse legend, Ægir (sea god), Ran (his wife) and their nine daughters brewed beer for the Gods. And we’re talking Norse gods here, so they must have brewed a LOT of beer. The cups in Ægir’s hall were always full, magically refilling themselves when emptied.
Raugupatis and Ragutiene – the God of fermentation and his consort in Baltic mythology.
St. Augustine of Hippo, St. Nicholas and St. Luke the Evangelist – the patron saints of brewing.

Further Reading:

Delwen Samual, 1996. A Modern Scientific Study of Egyptian Brewing Methods.
More beer enthusiasts attempt to create beer using the Hymm to Ninkasi recipe.
Miguel Civil, Hymm to Ninkasi (full text).

So metalheads, I want to see comments! I want to know beer recommendations! I want to read your best stories about being pissed and metal! Who’s up for a round of the “Manowar Drinking Game?”

Raise Your Horns! \m/
Steff Metal

A to-do list.

I believe in the power of the to-do list. I am a naturally chaotic, disorganised person (just ask anyone who’s witnessed my 6:30am dash around the house to find my socks, boots, glasses, cellphone, wallet, swipe card, MP3 player and lunch) and without lists, I forget things. Important things. Usually one or more of the items on the list above.

Do it!

I am the Gene Simmons of list writers. I relish the sensation of scrawling a big black line through each item. My list for today: 24 items. my list for planning our Europe trip? Oooooh, somewhere over 200. I’m working on our list for moving to Germany, which is about 30 items at the moment.

Some people say to only write a few, important tasks on your lists. I disagree. I like to write lots of tasks – between 15-30, including items like “have lunch” and “feed the cat”, because I love being able to cross them off. More things to do? More things to cross off. I know, I am sick. But, when I manage to complete a 20 item to-do list in a day, I feel pretty damn good.

I also like the lists to be somewhat humorous, at least to me, so I have an excuse for keeping my notebook and reading back over it and giggling.

Here are two of my lists from the past week:

• finish editing Thorn up till the scene where the stuff happens. You know what I mean.
• make french toast
• eat french toast
• finish copywriting and bill client
• finish painting while watching Black Books
• empty kitty litter tray while making an accurate size comparison between cat’s head and cats … poo.
• never write the word poo in a to-do list again

and

• sex
• find missing Korplikaani CD
• reply to dude about the thing
• marinade meat
• make crumble
• shopping list
• renew library books
• Thai lunch with friend from work
• maybe some more sex

In the interest of spreading the list-making love, I’ve compiled a short tutorial on making Metal-worthy to-do lists.

Steff’s rules for creating a Grymm and Epic To-Do list

1. It should be EPIC

It should be long and impossible, because life is long and impossible, and we do it anyway. Everything you don’t do either wasn’t important or can be moved to the next day.

2. It doesn’t have to be serious

Who said organising had to be all “take the garbage out” and “Mow the lawns.” Yes, you have to put down these chores, but spread them out between things you DO want to do, or give them more metal names. It’s never mowing the lawns at the Steff Metal house, more like “Slaying the Mightly Army of Apocalyptic Demon Grass”.

3. It should be Grymm

Any metalhead’s to-do list should include at least one of the four “m”‘s – meat, maidens, mead and metal. If you can include all four items, so much the better.

4. It should be constantly updated

To-do lists are not static, but fluid. They constantly exist in a stage of not-being-finished. The sooner you accept that you will NEVER, ever finish your to-do list, the happier you will be to

5. It should contain achieveable goals

The purpose of a to-do list is to cross things off. So you need to write items you can define as “complete” so you can cross them off. It doesn’t matter how outrageous they are, from “Open for Metallica” to “finish an entire pizza”, it should be a one-time event that you can finish and cross off, even if it takes you three years to finally achieve it.

Readers, how do you organise your hectic lives? Would you like to share today’s to-do lists with me?

Yours with meat, maidens, mead and metal!
Steff

Grymm & Epic ebooks is my line of ebooks about the heavy metal life. They are like my blog posts, but much, much longer. I wanted a way to talk in-depth about topics I’m passionate about, and since I’ve already written five ebooks, the format works for me.

I’m launching Grymm & Epic ebooks with the most EPIC ebook I’ve ever written – the Grymm & Epic Guide to Blogging. This mammoth document of doom contains 250 pages and over 45 000 words on creating, maintaining and growing a blog.

You can read more about the Grymm and Epic Guide to Blogging in the Steff Metal Shop.

Why Grymm & Epic?

My ebooks are GRYMM because you won’t find any corporate salesy stuff or “I know best” – just honest, down-to-earth advice from a fellow businesswoman / blogger / metalhead about what works and doesn’t worki in my rather crazy and exciting life.

My ebooks are EPIC because they are monsters. I don’t believe in selling $10 or $20 ebooks with only 50 pages of text. You’ll find my ebooks will be about the length of a book you buy in the shop.

To celebrate the launch, I’m offering a special price for THIS WEEK ONLY, for anyone who wants to buy Grymm & Epic Guide to blogging through the Steff Metal website. I’ve priced this book at $19, but you can buy it for $15, if you follow the link below. After seven days, the price goes back to $19.

So yeah. If you’re keen, take a look and let me know what you think!

I would love to have a new ebook out every month, but because I write so bloody much, this won’t happen. You might see the next ebook out in a couple of months, or it might be six months away, I just can’t say. I can tell you it will be the “Grymm & Epic Guide to Cookery” and will be filled with lots of wicked ass bad recipes and ideas for metal dishes and parties.

Over the next few months I’ll also be editing the ebooks I’ve already written Freelance Writing Success will become the Grymm & Epic Guide to Freelance Writing, the Gothic and Halloween Wedding Planners will become Grymm & Epic Guide to Wedding Planning, etc. (Only 33 Mistakes Writers Make about Blind Characters will remain as it was). If you’ve brought an ebook from me before, you will be automatically sent an update of the ebook.

A few other exciting things are happening in the world of Steff Metal, including an incredible site redesign, which we shall be revealing in a few weeks.

Keep it Grymm \m/
Steff Metal

For the last six months I’ve been dating the sweetest, funniest girl. Everything’s perfect, except … she’s not into metal. She likes indie shit music.

I’ve never dated a “metal chick” before, and this has never been a problem for me. Except now I really like this girl. Recently, a lot of bands have been visiting my city, and I’ve  spent tons of money on shows and tickets and t-shirts, and we stopped doing stuff as much as we used to, because I’ve been busy and broke and it’s pissing her off.

I feel sad when I see other dudes with their girlfriends headbanging away at shows. Metal is a huge part of my life, and I would love to share it with her, but she just doesn’t “get it”. So my question is, metalheads and non-metalheads, does it work?

***

In my experience, no.

I dated two non-metalheads. The first was in high=school, and I introduced him to Metallica and he fell in love and, while he likes a lot of “indie shit” he’s a guitarist, so had a real appreciation for metal. So that was OK, but it was high school so it all fell apart in a majorly bad way.

The second I went out with for three years – he was a musician too, and when I met him he was wearing a Metallica shirt and had long hair. I thought I’d hit paydirt. But, while Metallica had introduced me to the wonderful world of metal, he regarded them as the heaviest band on earth, and didn’t like any other metal bands, and couldn’t see the appeal of the bands I listened to. He was more into alternative rock, and I felt myself being pulled further away from the “scene”, into his world, and I realized that wasn’t what I wanted. As time went on, we just spent less and less time together as my interests went in one direction and his in another. This wasn’t just about the music, but it was a big part of it. I knew metal would always be a big part of my life and I wanted someone to share that with.

Having dated (and married) a metalhead, I would never reconsider this decision (and it was a conscious decision). I have always been attracted to a certain personality in men – and those qualities were things I did not possess, qualities that complement my own personality. I think this is a subconscious decision on my behalf to choose people who will fill out the areas in which I lack.

My husband and I are very different: I am very frugal (sometimes to the point of ridiculousness), whereas he spends money as soon as he gets it, so together we create a (mostly) happy medium. I am painfully shy and eternally optimistic, and he is very forthright and cynical, so we balance those aspects of each other’s personalities. I am the person he needed to show him he can do more with his life than he ever imagined. And he is the person who will stick up for me and protect me when I can’t do this for myself.

Our metal, viking, medieval, halloween wedding

We “get” each other, in part because we both hear ourselves in the music, so we feel like we knew each other before we even met. Some of the best nights of my life were at gigs and festivals – I can’t imagine not being able to share that with someone.

My husband dated a number of girls before me, and he says.

“I never even contemplated dating a metal chick, because all the ones I met were scody. One of my girlfriends said she ‘understood why I liked metal, but just couldn’t get into it.” A couple of them liked that I had long hair and seemed “dangerous”. But metal was something I enjoyed by myself, or with mates while we drank beer and talked about our crazy girlfriends. I just thought that was normal.

“But with Steff, everything changed. She was totally different to those other girls; someone I never would have thought of dating if she hadn’t been wearing an Iron Maiden shirt. She wasn’t neurotic; she didn’t make everything into a big deal. She didn’t care about girly things – she’d ring up and ask if I wanted to do something, and it would always be fun. She introduced me to her mates and they were all metalheads, and they became my mates too, and before I know it I was playing drums again and my life had completely changed. And being a metalhead meant she liked all this other awesome stuff, too – archaeology, swordfighting, horror films, steak and chips – and we just clicked. Everything just clicked.”

But, I know a lot of guys (and girls) dating non-metalheads who find it works perfectly, because they share other things in their lives – medieval history, charity work, philosophies, industrial music – that mean more to them as a couple than metal. Many of my guy friends love going out to gigs with their friends as an excuse to hang out once a month, and have a big blokes night out. Others find metal cathartic, a way to meditate and let go of frustrations, a kind of inner peace they don’t want to share with someone else.

Don't marry a metalhead folks, if you don't want your wedding to look like this.

I know it’s harder for guys in the metalhead dating game, because while some research suggests an equal number of men and women listen to metal, men are predominantly the ones who go to shows, collect the albums, and obsess over the music. The girls who do this are either – to quote my charming husband – “ugly or taken.” So if you want a metalhead girl, you have the numbers stacked against you from the very beginning.

But that’s not the real issue here.

When you say “metalheads and non-metalheads, does it work?” what I hear is “Things seem perfect, but I’m starting to have doubts”.

Are you?

People tend to embrace metal because the music speaks to part of them – it becomes a manifestation of who they are and what they believe in. Your girlfriend obviously loves music too, and she probably feels the same way about her indie music.

Do you call her music “indie shit” to her face? I bet it pisses her off. Don’t do that, because it’s like you’re calling her indie shit, since her music is as much a part of her as metal is a part of you. Feel free to call it “indie shit” here, though, because I 100% agree.

You shouldn’t give up on your girl because she doesn’t like metal, but you should call it quits if she actually doesn’t get you, and what you stand for.

If you really want to make it with this girl, I would make her a mix CD of metal songs. Metal songs that describe you, describe her and the way you feel about her (maybe leave “Pleasure Slave” off). Songs that got you through the hard times, and celebrate the man you are now and the man you hope to be. Write the linear notes explaining what each song means to you. Trust me, she’s a girl, she will think this is the most amazing gift ever. 

Let her make a mix tape for you, full of indie shit, and see if you can understand.

When you hear a song out of context, and you’re not listening, you are bound to think its shit. When you go to a Deicide concert and you have no idea who they are, you’re going to find it scary. But if you show your girlfriend how metal makes you feel, . She will probably realize actually, she does like some of the songs you give her. And you will probably discover a few shit indie songs aren’t actually that bad.

Let me know how you get on! And also, if anyone reading has a question they’d like answered on the blog (or privately: I am on top of my email) send me a message at steff@steffmetal.com

\m/ Peace, Love and Necromancy \m/
Steff