From the minute I was born heavy metal has been a constant in my life, quite literally considering my ride home from the hospital included my dad playing The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden. My family has always been like that though, further building up that ride home with blasting more Iron Maiden, Pantera, AC/DC, Megadeth, Judas Priest, Motley Crue, and more everyday throughout the house.

I remember when I was younger, one of my first Playstation games was Sled Storm, a nifty snowmobiling game with a killer soundtrack including one of my favorites "Dragula" by Rob Zombie. Not only was this awesome to me as a kid, winning races while this was playing on repeat, but it was even better beating my Dad with it blaring too. Not only was the Playstation the origins of my love for video games, but open the doors for the PS2, and even better Guitar Hero. With my "guitar" in hand, I learned how to play all the hits that I had heard for years previous, and the more games that came out, the better and better I got. To this daym I'm still pretty proud that I even could play Through the Fire and the Flames on the hard difficulty.




Fast forward a bunch of years and I get to go to my first concert ever, Motley Crüe. It was Crüe Fest, July 16th, 2008, and it was a night I'd never forget. Not only did I get to hear the origins of "Shout at the Devil," but I also discovered bands such as Trapt, BuckCherry, Papa Roach, and Sixx A.M. This concert was particularly great as I got to meet and hug DJ Ashba, lead guitarist of Sixx A.M. and one of my many childhood crushes.

From the metal heads moshing, screaming and sometimes topless fangirls, and the smells of booze everywhere, it is a weird place to see a thirteen year old, but ever since then I was hooked on concerts and rock n' roll.

Two years later, I got to see, what I believe to be one of the greatest bands in existence, Iron Maiden. It was The Final Frontier World Tour, July 18th, 2010. The stage presence, and hell, the stage itself was a spectacle to have seen, Iron Maiden belted out the anthems of my childhood and then some, leaving me breathless, and with a massive headache from headbanging too hard that was oh so worth it.

Since then I've also seen Three Days Grace, P.O.D., Shinedown, Rob Zombie x2, Five Finger Death Punch x2, Amon Amarth, Mastodon, Huntress, Butcher Babies, Job for a Cowboy, Emmure, Children of Bodom, Megadeth, All that Remains, Hellyeah, Korn, Three Doors Down, Black Stone Cherry, Stone Temple Pilots, Dellacoma, Skid Row, Slayer, Black Label Society, Machine Head, Wayland, and so much more.

To this day, Heavy Metal has been a constant in my life, from listening to it everyday, always scoping out the next concerts, playing A LOT of video games that have various songs as the soundtrack to games where it IS about metal (Looking at you Brutal Legend, where is Brutal Legend 2?), and continuing to share this love with my family and friends. If I wasn't at a concert, playing a game, or listening to my music in my room, I was usually watching the VH1's Top Ten of Heavy Metal, Hair Metal, Rock N' Roll, or waiting Metalocalypse to come on Adult Swim.
Hell, I've even incorporated it into my artwork for my college portfolio.

Iron Maiden Killers Tribute, 2015.

In the end of it all, I've never felt that listening and liking metal was a choice I made, it was something that I was born to do. If it wasn't because of my hippie parents, there would have been something else that would have sparked it. Metal is a part of who I am and I wouldn't change it for the world.

Of all bands and songs that could have capture the essence how metal is more than a genre, it is Manowar's "Die for Metal:"

Ten thousand strong are here tonight
With twenty thousand fists up in the air
The power of true metal's calling you
It's everywhere

Hold your head up high
Raise your fist up in the air
Play metal louder than hell
Louder than hell

They can't stop us
Let 'em try
For heavy metal
We would die!