Well, this may come as a surprise to some who know me. I decided to start a metal blog. Me of all people. The reasons are obvious really. My husband listens to heavy metal. His best friends listen to heavy metal. They know people from heavy metal bands. Whilst I am attending James Blunt concerts or merrily singing along to various pop or rock songs. I never got the hang of it. I think heavy metal is cool. I like the fans, I like the lifestyle that comes with it. Denim, leather and long hair. What more do you need in a man.
I even tried listening to metal more seriously several times. There was my LOTR-phase when I was 16, listening to Blind Guardian obviously (I even had to google right now if Blind Guardian actually counts as metal...). When I met my husband (I was 19) there were some bands I liked to listen to with him: Samael, Hammerfall, Iron Maiden, Motörhead... but mostly only certain songs and only for a very limited amount of time.
When I was 18 I had a friend. A pen-pal really, we met online. We wrote e-mails, we wrote real letters, we met once in his hometown. His name was Manu. Manu was older than me and honestly, I don't know why he bothered staying in touch with me. Because I was so involved in my own drama I did not really bother to ask about his. But nevertheless, he kept in touch for as long as I was interested in his company. Manu was an editor with the magazine Metal Hammer in Germany. He tried so hard to get me to listen to some good music (sending me mix-tapes). Unfortunately he knew me during my desperate HIM fan-girl-times, so not much luck. We lost touch for a long time. And a couple of months ago I learned that he had died at the age of 37. This rocked me to my core and I had a hard time to take this in. Still have. I found his Top-Ten-All-Time-Favourite-Albums online and I started listening to them. Unfortunately, I still did not feel them the way he must have done and I'd like to change this.
For me, those are two pretty good reasons to start delving deeper into the subject of heavy metal. I am excited and very curious where this road will lead me.