Who Created Heavy Metal?

The age old debate of who created metal rages across rock forums around the net, but who’s right? Some say Black Sabbath with their apocalyptic riffs, some say Led Zeppelin were the first to play metal and others claim the very first to play heavy was Jimi Hendrix. This article will try and set things straight. The very first metal riff must be penned to the Kink’s You Really Got Me although the Kinks were not a metal band. This song was released in September 1964 and I will be surprised if you can tell me an earlier metal riff. Not only is the riff metal, the sound that comes with it is very important. The ‘dirty’ sound that is achieved comes from the Kink’s lead guitarist Dave Davies taking a razor to his amp’s speaker cone.

Then we have the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Why people claim that Jimi was the first metal player was because of the ‘wall of sound’ effect that Jimi created with his pedals and amps but take these away you will hear blues based rock and roll. Led Zeppelin is always credited with the creation of metal. There is truth in that Zeppelin influenced many metal and non metal bands due to their heavy riff oriented rock but just like Jimi take away the heavy sound and you just have a great blend of blues and rock. Another great British band that isn’t often talked about but was a key in the creation of bands like Led Zeppelin is Cream. Cream started in 1966 but only lasted to 1970 with members wanting to experiment down different paths, some with great success (Eric Clapton). Cream was also blues based but like Hendrix kept a consistent heavy sound with songs like Sunshine of Your Love and White Room.

In come the three keyboard metal bands. Iron Butterfly, Steppenwolf and Deep Purple all started in 1968. Steppenwolf’s self titled album and Iron Butterfly’s In A Gadda Da Vida were both instantly popular when released in 68. Steppenwolf became even more popular when their hit single Born to Be Wild which had reached number two in the US was used as the theme song to the film Easy Rider. The line “Heavy-metal thunder” would help define a name for the new genre. These two bands were not consistently metal and still followed rock and roll basis that been set for them by bands over the last ten years. Deep Purple followed this basis for their first three albums until 1970.

1970 was a big year for what was to be metal. Four albums were released. One was Led Zeppelin 3. It contained a couple of hard rockers but was still rooted in blues and folk. The next two were Black Sabbath’s self titled album and Deep Purple’s in Rock. Between theses two albums the general public heard the basis of what metal bands were going to deliver from then on till the present. The fourth album that was released was Black Sabbath’s second, Paranoid. Where the first album had a hard bluesy feel to it, the second was something else. Something that had not been heard before. For the first time a four piece metal band had been created, they had a satanic image, they had blistering guitar solo’s and ominous lyrics. They had Ozzy Osbourne. From then on Deep Purple and Black Sabbath were the metal bands. Heavy screeching guitars, pounding bass lines, hard hitting drum beats and the banshee howl of a metal lead singer was what was to follow because of these two pioneering bands.