Contrary to decades of speculation about the poor mental health of heavy metal fans, newer research conducted with metal people has begun to reveal some of the more positive and nuanced connections between heavy metal music, metal culture and mental health.1 In this chapter, I build on new understandings of metal and wellness by examining three domains of well-being through a lens of heavy metal identity formations. Specifically, I will discuss: (1) belonging and acceptance by like-minded others; (2) stress and coping in the social world; and (3) building resilience in uncertain times. Ultimately, I will explore ways that being metal can facilitate good outcomes in these three spaces.
Note the term ‘being metal’ that is used here, rather than listening to metal or enjoying metal music. Yes, the music is vitally important in any discussion of metal, but this chapter focuses on those who take the next step of declaring a metal identity – whether verbally by saying things like ‘I’m a metalhead’, or maybe in more visual ways like embodying a metal identity that can be seen and read on the body by others.
Identity studies have a long history of looking at well-being outcomes associated with identity choices. It is widely accepted that identity and well-being are tightly bound, for better or worse. It is also clear that metal identities are highly valued by their ‘owners’, so it makes sense to examine the nexus of metal identity formations and the mental health of metal fans and artists.
The arguments throughout this chapter are drawn from my previous research,2 critical identity studies and my own life in metal. I conclude by proposing that the identity self-talk of metalheads, and its interplay with the embodiment of metal identities, has significant value for steeling oneself against some of the most pervasive social and emotional threats of modern life.
Identity Making and the Internal Conversation
There are many different theories surrounding our identity formations, or put simply, what makes us who we are in terms of how we define ourselves in the world. As an academic discipline, psychology has certainly been dominant in theorising self and identity. However, this chapter takes a sociological view of identity-making, particularly social-relational perspectives that view identity-making as something that happens between people.
Whether we realise it or not, our interactions with others give us new information or affirm existing information about who we are and what is possible for us in life. This includes our interactions at the micro level in our personal relationships and immediate contexts like work, school and community, through to institutional interactions at the meso and macro levels of our social system (like housing, employment, health and justice systems).
We all construct identity biographies, or the story of who we are, based on past experiences, present circumstances and future predictions. Think of it as a screenplay: we craft the story of our lives with ourselves in the leading role, and we make rolling revisions to the script as other actors enter and exit the scene, often throwing the plot into chaos. Sometimes we ‘write’ our identity narratives with a lot of effort and overthinking, and sometimes without even realising it, but we are all doing it, albeit in different ways, and we are testing our identities out and revising them based on the feedback we get and how we process it.
For example, let us say I am teaching a class and pose a question to students. If everyone looks at me blankly and no one answers, I might process that as negative feedback about my teaching capabilities. I might think, ‘I’m a terrible teacher, I couldn’t get the key points across, no one understood what I was trying to say, I’m a fraud, I don’t belong here’. Despite students not actually saying that to me, that might be my interpretation based on the interaction, and consequently, my teacher identity is likely to suffer a blow. Some identity ‘injuries’ are minor and easily healed, but some can be major injuries that may take a very long time to repair, if at all. It also depends on the importance we place on the portion of identity that has been harmed because we have many different moving parts to our identities. For example, teacher is only one of my identities; I also identify as a woman, a mother, a daughter, an activist and a metalhead, to name a few.
We ‘discuss’ and strategize our identity components in an ongoing internal dialogue we have with ourselves – how we are regarded by others is a crucial factor for shaping these internal conversations through which we come to understand ‘ourselves, our lives, the meaning of our actions and our biographical narratives’.3 This idea is critical for analysing how metalheads construct a sense of self in everyday life, particularly what we come to ‘learn’ about ourselves through interactions with others, and how this shapes our self-talk.
Of course, we all wear multiple identities, as mentioned above, but the focus here is squarely on metal identity formations and ways they play out in everyday life because being in the world as a metalhead often embodies a clear and compelling social identity that others can see and recognise. And furthermore, not everyone likes it! Metal identities have been negatively characterised as deviant and delinquent, apathetic and demotivated, socially undesirable or mentally unwell, to outright dangerous (think stereotypes of school shooters and Satan worshippers). So why then would people sign up for this? And why make such a point of embodying an (often) unmistakeable metal identity that is subject to negative stereotyping?4
If you believe metal’s detractors, it is because there is something clearly wrong with us. But if you start asking serious questions of metal people in respectfully curious and non-judgemental ways, you might get some interesting answers that challenge myths and stereotypes about metal fans and artists.
That is precisely what I did; I spent five years talking to (the same) metal youth as they left school, moved out of home, started playing gigs and touring, and got jobs. I got to know them well, and I watched them adapt to many different curve balls that life threw at them. The constant thing in their lives was their passion for metal, but the enjoyment consisted of so much more than just the music, although that was clearly the primary drawcard. Their metal identities were incredibly important for helping them cope with all sorts of things – things that, in one way or another, could fit into three key areas of well-being: namely, belonging and acceptance; stress and coping; building resilience. Further, the wellness factors participants described were crucial for supporting optimal well-being in everyday life, not just in metal contexts.
The metal identity narratives I collected were largely very positive, which of course mounts a significant challenge to the deficit constructions of metal fans as being more likely to be depressed or suicidal than fans of other genres. To be clear though, I am not attempting to present a utopian view of the metal landscape as being carefree and untouched by mental health concerns. Like all areas of society, metal too is touched by mental health concerns and suicide within the fold. But here, I argue that our understanding of metal identities has been skewed by uninformed stereotyping for a very long time, and for this reason, this chapter unapologetically presents a positive line of dialogue to redress the imbalance somewhat.
Self-Talk of Belonging and Acceptance in the Metal World
Building an identity and attaining a sense of belonging and acceptance are complex human pursuits. As social beings, we spend a lot of time and effort constructing a social identity that we can shop around until we find the right fit. In one way or another, it is generally a sense of community we are looking for, or at least communion with like-minded others whose approval reflects and affirms that our lives are somehow worthwhile, and our ideas are valued. Identity transactions like this are going on all the time, all over the world, among all age groups, as we all try and find our place in the world. Even those who consider themselves to be outsiders or against the social grain are forging their ‘uniqueness’ in solidarity with other outsiders, with a lot of metal people in this category. And so begins the entanglement of identity and well-being, which explains why we spend so much time trying to fit in to whatever we deem as important to fit in with – we intrinsically know that it is good for our well-being to feel accepted – a sense of belonging tells us ‘We’re okay, it’s okay, I’m okay’.5
Heavy metal communities make for fascinating case studies of belonging and acceptance. On one hand, there is the more obvious sense of acceptance that is possible for metalheads in their local scene or in face-to-face metal communities. The separation between artists and fans is usually rather minimal in metal communities because it is common for numerous metal bands to regularly play together in local scenes, and the musicians are fans too, and vice versa, even if fans are at the pre-contemplative stage of writing and performing.
Also common to artists and fans alike is the embodiment of metal identities. Not only are metalheads often visible to each other in local scenes and face-to-face communities, but complete strangers can know and accept each other.6 My young adult research participants described some of the more fleeting ways this can occur, such as seeing someone on a bus or in a coffee shop and having a sense of ‘just knowing where they’re coming from’ because of the band T-shirt they are wearing or a particular metal aesthetic. Of course, we would critically question the validity of statements like this, but the symbolic significance is real in the eyes of the perceiver, and that is the key point in terms of fostering a sense of belonging.
On a more practical note, some participants in my research in Australia had travelled internationally to attend music festivals in Europe and the United States, and to explore death metal scenes in South-East Asia. For them, travel experiences were opportunities to test out the perceived sense of metal kinship that they had forged from a very early age, long before they ever met another metal person or went to shows. They had some language barriers to navigate in the countries they visited, but the language of the metal shirt was indeed universal. They were instantly recognisable as metalheads and were welcomed into local scenes, and I am sure this will resonate with seasoned metal people reading this, who have been embraced by other local scenes when travelling (as I have).
In sum, the universal acceptance of being metal by other metal people7 is a legitimate phenomenon, and metal folks know it. But the interesting thing, from a well-being perspective, is the surrogate sense of belonging and acceptance that imagined community membership can also provide for those who are isolated and cannot access face-to-face communities, whether by choice or circumstance.
My research findings showed that establishing a sense of collective metal identity was the first step to feeling like a member of a global metal community. The metal youth I interviewed achieved this by watching metal media, participating in metal forums online, learning to embody metal identities and decorating their rooms with metal posters and various other pieces of metal paraphernalia and artefacts.
Long before they ever met another metalhead in person, their collective identity narratives fostered a deep sense of connection to a global metal community – albeit imagined. It was common to hear them say things like ‘that sense of community is great’, ‘we take care of our own’ and ‘we’re a tight-knit community’, despite the fact they did not know any other metalheads at that point in time. Crucially, this imagined sense of community was a significant protective factor for mental health challenges associated with experiences of bullying, bereavement, family breakdown and the social isolation of moving around (or changing schools) and not knowing anyone.
Based on the consistency of my findings and lived experience, it is plausible to suggest that the positive benefits of imagined metal community membership are transferable across the lifespan and in any number of socially marginalised contexts. Loneliness and isolation are universal; anyone is susceptible. But ‘being metal’ can go a long way towards re-authoring the stories we tell ourselves about being alone in the world – just pulling on a metal T-shirt can give us an instant sense of belonging and acceptance that can get us through the day. Further, this alternate belonging and acceptance can be seen and known by others, which can be enormously therapeutic for those who have been socially rejected by dominant cultural groups and norms, and even protective in social contexts, as I will discuss next.
Deploying Metal Identities to Manage Stress in the Social World
While participating in metal community life, real or imagined, is widely regarded by metal fans and artists as a positive experience, the broader social world is not always as uplifting. Family, school and work are three pivotal environments that many of us must navigate at some stage, as well as various social systems and institutions that make up our social landscape (think health, justice, housing, banking, transport, welfare systems, to name a few). Within these contexts, there are many social interactions to work through as well; some friendly, some hostile.
Hostile social relations can range from being mildly uncomfortable, to a feeling of vulnerability that something bad could happen, through to outright rejection and exclusion, and even a sense of imminent physical or emotional danger. Regardless of the nature or severity, the common denominator is power, and if we are the ones feeling hard done by, it is probably because we have been disempowered in some way – by either a person, a group, a process or a system that seems stacked against us because they are holding the power.
Feeling disempowered and disrespected amounts to a moral attack on our identity. When our sense of self is attacked and injured, it can leave us feeling hurt, angry and generally disappointed that we do not measure up in some way, or are not quite good enough, or worthy enough, of respect and inclusion (at school, at work, in peer groups or in any number of social settings).
Feeling disrespected can spark an intense desire for recognition and justice that is not being met, and it can be very stressful trying to reclaim power and recognition in alternate ways. When we talk about stress management and music, it is usually in terms of the listening experience and the calming (or motivating) effect that music can have on us.8 However, looking beyond the music reveals interesting ways the metal culture can intersect with identity and well-being to remediate social conflicts. Resistance against dominant groups as an exercise in self-care might not be a new idea, but it certainly offers a fresh way of looking at metal identities and stress management in the social world.
Think of it this way, if metal identities can create a sense of belonging and acceptance by like-minded others (or keeping the right people in), they can also be used for protection in socially vulnerable situations (or keeping the wrong people out). And this is where those long-standing negative stereotypes about metalheads can prove quite useful for some.
Most readers will be familiar with the 1985 US Senate hearings into lyrical content of (mostly) heavy metal and rap music. In short, the key arguments for censoring lyrics rested on the unsubstantiated claims that such music would send people off the rails, particularly impressionable youth. Conservative detractors opined that metal was ‘outrageous filth’ portraying and glorifying rape, incest, sexual violence, perversion and suicide.9 The testimonies were based on opinion, not evidence, but they had an enduring influence on moral and religious commentary – including the Catholic Archbishop of New York, who drew on ‘evidence’ from the hearings when claiming some years later that heavy metal music is spiked with Satanic lyrics that disposed listeners to devil worship and demonic possession.10
In 1988, journalist Geraldo Rivera seized an opportunity to capitalise on metal’s bad press by producing a documentary called Devil Worship: Exposing Satan’s Underground,11 in which he tried to infer links between metal, murder and Satanism. Rivera highlighted several murders carried out by people who also liked heavy metal music. In the absence of any evidence showing that metal played any part in planning or carrying out the murders, the programme instead relied on sensational accounts of blood-drinking and human sacrifice to fuel the ‘Satanic Panic’ surrounding metal that was sweeping the United States at that time. In the decade or so after, metal was a ready-made scapegoat for numerous high-profile prosecutions – and was pounced on by prosecutors and media alike. School shootings kept metal at the forefront of moral panics too. For example, even though the shooters were not into metal, all school outcasts came under scrutiny after the Columbine High School shootings in 1999, and metalheads were put forward by media commentators as prime examples of ‘outsiders’ and ‘loners’ in school settings.
I revisit these rather well-known cultural time stamps to set the context for exploring why people would sign up for a recognisable identity that could stigmatise and stereotype them in such negative and disparaging ways. We all do things for a reason, so what can be gained by being misrepresented as a dangerous, devil-worshipping deviant who should be avoided at all costs? The hint is in the last statement there, the potential for being avoided by others.
We have all felt socially vulnerable at times, whether that is a case of not fitting in, feeling rejected (or at risk of rejection) or being outright bullied, harassed or victimised in some way. This can occur at any time throughout the lifespan, but these things are often felt acutely during high school years. My research with metal youth showed a clear pattern of feeling socially vulnerable during high school – some just felt like outsiders, whereas others were overtly bullied by popular students.
But the one thing participants had in common was the sense of social protection they felt after they started embodying metal identities; they enjoyed being stereotyped as the dangerous kid who might be capable of shooting the school up because people finally stopped picking on them and left them alone. Some said that it ‘feels good to know they [the bullies] are the ones afraid of you now’ and that ‘you get instant respect in a metal shirt’. Others reported the well-being aspect of being left alone, saying that ‘it feels good to have space’ and like ‘you can finally breathe and relax a bit’.
The politically transformative properties of social movements and subcultural groups are not new.12 However, many metal people describe themselves as loners or outsiders, and my research affirmed that political transformation tended to occur at the level of the individual for participants, which makes metal rather unique in its political capacity for redressing individually experienced power relations.
On one hand, being left alone and labelled an outsider does not sound promising for making friends and building networks. But if they are not your type of people anyway, then keeping bullies at bay without having to get in a fistfight with them can be quite a good and clever option. As it turned out, the metal youth I interviewed were all very introverted and non-confrontational by nature. They did not want any trouble, they did not want to fight, they just wanted to go about their business in peace and be left alone, which is a far cry from the stereotype of dangerous and violent metal youth. They were able to recalibrate power relations on their own terms.
During our teenage years, identity-making is vitally important for establishing ourselves, although we tend to have a rather limited pool of options to choose from. As we make our way through adulthood, more identity opportunities usually start to open for us: as workers, lovers, spouses, scholars, artists or members of leisure groups. But these can also give rise to new opportunities for hostile relations to emerge, including social exclusion from systems like housing and labour markets. The frustration of exclusion can present itself in complex ways throughout the lifespan; therefore, future research with more senior metal people could provide fascinating insights into the emotionally protective factors of metal identities throughout the life course. Anecdotally, the well-being factor of maintaining a metal identity feels true for me and other ‘older’ metalheads I talk to about this. However, empirical data from metal scholars is long overdue, given that metal elders are now approaching anywhere up to five decades of embodying a metal identity.13
Arguably, there is always an ‘edge’ to pulling on a metal shirt and keeping the world at bay when needed, regardless of how old we are. Finding retreat and respite are important mechanisms for refuelling our energy to meet life’s challenges and the resilience we need to forge ahead.
Metal as a Building Block for Resilience in Uncertain Times
The concept of resilience is no stranger to discussions of well-being; indeed, it is widely regarded as a significant protective factor for mental health.14 But the contours of building resilience in the context of being metal are especially intriguing and multi-faceted.
At its core, resilience is the ability to cope and bounce back from adverse life events. Our mental and emotional capacity to navigate life stressors also depends on how flexible and adaptable we are or need to be when facing uncertainty. Those of us who hang on too tightly to ‘what ought to be’ often have trouble going with the flow and accepting ‘what is’. Being too rigid about ideas and opinions only serves to make us stuck and hold back our progression through new ideas and learning, even when they are thrust upon us and not of our choosing, like having to re-skill after losing a job or learning to date again after a long-term relationship ends.
But when everything around us is in flux, like work, education, housing, relationships and so on, sometimes we need an anchor point to steady us in rough seas, and metal identities can provide a comforting sense of certainty and reliability. We may not always know how things will turn out, and we may not be able to control some things, but we can know who we are as a metalhead.
But metal is more than a fixed anchor point for resilience building. It can be a significant emotional resource for finding a way back from bereavement, family breakdown, health issues, unemployment and various types of victimisation or social vulnerabilities – but finding a way forward, in a tangible way, requires some skills and resources that metal can also provide, along with the confidence and motivation to deploy them.
Skill Building, Future Proofing
Around the time the ‘Satanic Panic’ was sweeping across America and beyond, researchers, most notably from psychology, were becoming preoccupied with ‘proving’ the problem of metal for youth development.15 Some authors took the suicide and mental health angle, while others started speculating that metalheads were pretty much pre-destined for low-educational attainment and low-achieving futures.16 The bleak picture of metal youth was one of dropping out of school, smoking pot all day, and barely being able to string a coherent sentence together, despite any rigorous research evidence to substantiate such ideas.17
In contrast, more recent studies have found metal youth to be rather gifted students with spirited aspirations.18 Whether or not they can achieve them, however, depends on a predictable set of social, economic and domestic factors that can impact all people, regardless of the music they listen to. This should not be surprising, but more interesting is the role that metal can play in skill development and confidence building, both of which are crucial building blocks for resilience and future-proofing the self in an ever-changing social world.
Metal is known from within as a DIY (do it yourself) culture which encompasses all aspects of musical production and scene maintenance. Indeed, participation in local scenes can provide extensive opportunities to build a diverse complement of both hard and soft skills – hard skills being teachable and measurable in nature like learning to write, play, record and perform music, engineering live performances and producing artwork and promotional materials; and soft skills capturing desirable attributes like good communication, effective time management, problem-solving, mentoring, organisational skills and teamwork required to maintain and sustain local metal scenes. The acquisition of these skills might originate in the metal context, but crucially, once learned, they are transferable to other environments.
Other (less obvious) opportunities for skill development are metal-inspired life choices like undertaking international travel to attend metal festivals. Participants in my research documented the important life skills they learned by embarking on international travel, such as saving money, budgeting, organising, communicating in other languages, and generally having to be self-sufficient in a foreign country. These young adults in Australia had never travelled abroad (nor had they travelled anywhere alone). However, metal was the motivating force ‘to save up and live the dream’, hence it motivated them to undertake further study and ‘get better jobs’ to fund future trips.
This is a good example of ways we reflexively incorporate new experiences into the identity stories we tell ourselves. These trips, inspired by a love of metal, had imbued these people with a new sense of purpose, capabilities, aspirations and visions for where they could set the bar in life more broadly. Importantly, their biographies of growth and empowerment had a significant impact on their positive outlook and overall well-being.
These outcomes might not be the same for everyone, but they should encourage us to rethink metal as a potentially positive developmental tool rather than a problem. Metal scenes and communities clearly provide numerous opportunities to road-test ideas and acquire skills and confidence that underpin well-being under the tutelage of good metal mentorship.
Conclusion
Outside of the metal fold, metal had a bad reputation for a long time. Discourses of deviancy, Satanism, suicide ideation, violence and generally poor life outcomes for metalheads were common in mainstream media and public sentiment. This chapter, however, has drawn on sociological research with metal fans and artists to present a more detailed understanding of the positive benefits of forging a metal identity.
No desire exists to convince the reader that all metal people are perfectly well adjusted, but there is sufficient evidence to drive an alternate discourse of metal music and culture as protective factors for mental health and well-being. In an era of unprecedented spikes in mental health diagnoses across the lifespan, it is crucial that we widen our scope for understanding ways that people deploy coping tools that might be considered against the grain by normative standards. If heavy metal identities are serving their owners well, that should be the most compelling evidence of all.
