We're back with more stories on my series of blog posts "When Metal and I met".
Previously I gave y'all a brief intro as to how the musical part of my life ran its course. But that was only until about first year pre-university college time.
I think after 10th grade, it was no more just LP. My cousin Vivek, who had just moved to HeadBangalore from Bombay to do his engineering in B.M.S introduced me to bands like Nirvana, Guns and Roses and a few other bands who were big during the 80's. At first, I liked songs like "Smells like teen spirit" and "Come as you are" by Nirvana. But a while later, I watched videos of their songs like "Lithium" and "You know you're right", and I immediately concluded that Kurt Cobain (R.I.P) was an uncontrollable crazy freak! Strange enough; I was right. Why did I think Kurt was crazy? Because he wore bras to play live at concerts, because he took his guitars and smashed them to bits, because he rammed his instruments into his own band-mates, because he stage-dived a lot, because he always look stoned and high, etc. I conveyed this to Vivek, and he said that he knew it, and that's exactly what he liked. Now, that was new to me. For a few days, my mind was going 'How can people like stuff like this?'. And consequently I kept watching more and more videos of Kurt Cobain. And slowly I realized that it was Kurt's "freedom of expression" and "unique style" that made him SO UNBELIEVABLY FAMOUS! And not just that, he was the pioneer of 'Grunge'. Now, what is Grunge? Grunge, in my opinion, is a blend of rock-metal and pop music. Sometimes the music sounds completely out of scale and tune. But I guess that's the beauty of it. Gives a feeling of 'No restrictions'. And before I knew it, I was absolutely addicted to Nirvana; more so, Kurt Cobain. And what followed the Nirvana addiction was the further investigation into Kurt's life history. Mayn, he's had a twisted life, I assure you that. That's when I figured that it would not behoove me to lead a life exactly like Kurt did. If I did that, I would've probably ended up the same way he did - Dead at 27. So I decided that I'm only going look at the positive aspects of Kurt, and neglect the otherwise negative aspects. And I still think that it's the right way to go about it.
Apart from Nirvana, I was very much into the hard rock band Godsmack. It was the game Prince of Persia : Warrior Within that introduced me to Godsmack. (by the way, I was a total game addict too, a story for another time). The theme songs of this game were a couple of heavy Godsmack songs called "Straight out of line" and "I stand alone". A gang of my friends, which included Arun, Thejus and Anirudh, who were into playing POP:WW were discussing that Godsmack must be a good band after having listened to these songs on the game. And like they say 'curiosity kills the cat'...well, here, it was more like 'curiosity got me to listen to more of Godsmack'. As simple as that. And as it turns out, I loved them! They have a style that certainly projects masculinity! They rode on Harley D choppers, they sang with a rough attitude and a rough voice, and their lyrics depict a lot of antagonism.Their rhythms were particularly heavy with a lot of bass and distortion guitars, and the drumming was pretty good too; And the solos weren't all that bad either. All in all, it was a style that impressed me. That was that, and I've listened to all their albums.
One can't help but notice that as time passed by, my musical influences, tastes and style have kept changing.
Why? Was I fickle? Maybe.(Probably not)
Over the latter half of the first year at college and the entire second year, there wasn't much music going on in my life. That was probably because we had LOADS of studying to do during those times. So music had to take a backseat for me. I would still listen to Godsmack, Nirvana, LP, Reveille, Trapt and a few other
bands, but I never really expanded my musical horizon.
Let's not forget that I still loved Kurt Cobain to death (Ironically he was dead even before I knew he was alive), though he wasn't a generic metalhead. It was only during recent times, that I realized that I'm heavily inspired by Pioneers. I'm inspired by people who start new things, no matter what the consequences are, no matter whether the idea's a success or not, no matter what people think or say. People who have the balls to start something entirely new, are pretty fuckin' kickass. At least, that's what I believe. Kurt Cobain certainly was one of them.
I'd like to end Part III of "When Metal and I met" here only because at this point, where I've stopped, my life took a steep curve. It was when Metal slowly crawled into the blood that pours through my veins. I want to be able to give you a complete description of the story. I'll be back with Part IV and Part IV is going to kick your fucking ass! I promise you that.
I guess there is a lot to take from this posting. First of all, its not that metal is the only genre I listen to(although metal is life, realistically speaking). And secondly, be open minded, do not criticize, learn how to learn. Be inspired. Be free. Be different, it marks your identity. And finally, be yourself. And these teachings...nobody better than Metal to have taught me that.
Thank you for spending your time on reading this post. Stay metal metalheads! (And the rest, take care)
Quote: Kurt Cobain (Nirvana) : "Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are."
Kurt Cobain (R.I.P)
