Bands Who Deny Their ‘Heavy Metal’ Status, and Some That Fans Argue ‘Are They Metal?’
Join Pete Pardo & Martin Popoff as they discuss bands who deny their classification as heavy metal, and some that fans argue about whether they are actually metal or not.
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@domielakrabi3276
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Always fun listening to you guys! Thanks!
Black Sabbath not a metal band, but they invented metal?!? Hm?!?
Motorhead IMHO was more punk than metal, but at the end they only played rock'n'roll 😉
@raycross5091
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Funny,
no matter which of these Friday videos I watch you guys always start off talking about the weather.
@omind1
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Fast is not heavy. Period. Fast can be aggressive for sure. Motorhead is variations on the theme of "Train Kept A-Rollin'". Also nothing exists in Motorhead that was not explicit in post WW II electric music. Re: the heavy of Muddy Waters, the mid tempo kickass of John Lee Hooker, et al. MH is closer to ZZ Top than Maiden, Priest wherein the unwashed masses metaled up.
@DavidRobbie-c6w
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I wonder when Heavy Metal was first used to describe a style of music. I have googled a reference to Black Sabbath being compared with Heavy Metal being dropped on the floor. Judas Priest I think embraced the term? But was Heavy Metal comic magazine (1977) in part defining for the term we know now – fantasy Conan type themes. Or was the magazine named in part after a term being used already for musical bands.
@leemorgan2782
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Interested when Martin says Zep don't do Metal well, what songs is he referring to? Dazed and Confused, Whole lotta love, Immigrant Song, Rock and Roll, The Ocean, The Rover, Achilles last Stand, In the Evening, Wearing and Tearing. One from each album. Now they're pretty good songs. Is Martin referring to these, because if he is then I think a lot of people would argue that these are done well. Doubt if you'll reply Martin but would be interested to know which songs you're referring to. Thanks, loved the show.
@Rextum
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I guess I would say:
Black Sabbath – Doom Metal (with some prog rock songs and even proto-thrash?)
Led Zeppelin – Hard Rock (with some heavy metal songs?)
Motörhead – Speed Metal (mixture of rock, punk and metal)
Deep Purple – Hard Rock (with some heavy metal songs)
Gillan – Heavy Metal (feels like Hard Rock, but sped up and intensified)
Aerosmith – Hard Rock (with some HM songs)
Acdc – Hard Rock
Def Leppard – first 2 Hard rock (with some HM songs), after that Pop metal/Glam Rock
Thin Lizzy – Hard Rock (their Last album might be HM)
Rush – Prog Rock (maybe proto-prog metal at their heaviest 1975-1977?)
Metallica – first four thrash, 5th heavy metal, 6th onwards… shit, who cares?😂
Ted Nugent or ZZ Top I am not familiar enough with.
Not a fan of hair metal, but I guess you could call it ”glam metal”. You know, the bands where guys spending more time fixing their make-up and chasing girls than actually writing music or playing guitar…
@andrisbrieze4855
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I know Martin understands, but Pete doesn’t get punk/ new-wave, at least doesn’t talk about it. To understand the period 1977 to 1983 you have to include hard-rock, metal, punk, new wave, skinhead, ska, new romantics, pre-goth (like Sisters of Mercy). Nothing exists in a vacuum and genres as they developed, heavily influenced each other. If you don’t get this, you’re not giving your audience the full picture. I pity those who grew up in the US ‘burbs, as you probably wouldn’t feel how these genres snd sub-cultures played out in the streets, pubs, football stadiums & clubs of London, where I grew up. Being part of a sub-culture was exhilarating and dangerous. I certainly got a few kickings, wrong place, wrong time, that kind of thing.
@DesrePeaston
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Hrothgar64 here.
I've had personal stuff to deal with over the last week or so, and only just catching up with this now. I don't know if anybody will read this comment, as it's late but…
Back in the 70's and early 80's, 'heavy metal' was a very broad church. Take Kerrang issue number 1 as an example. Published in June 1981. at the height of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal, it was tagged on the front cover (featuring Angus Young) as a "Sounds Heavy Metal Special". It featured Motorhead, Girlschool, Saxon, Venom, Trust, UFO, Kiss, Ted Nugent, Rose Tattoo, Blackfoot, Graham Bonnet, Wild Horses, Michael Schenker, ZZ Top, Pat Benatar, Ronnie Montrose, Vardis and Styx. How many of those would be classed as "heavy metal" now? The genre splits only really started when Thrash broke and before long, all the sub-genres appeared – death metal, black metal, doom etc. Nobody really used those terms before the mid 80's.
I agree that there is a certain amount of snobbery involved regarding the term. And I'm sorry, but Joe Elliott saying Def Leppard were never part of the NWOBHM? Really? NWOBHM fans bought their debut EP and first few albums. NWOBHM fans bought tickets to see them live. Without The NWOBHM, Joe Elliott would now be a retired fork lift truck driver, who'd worked in a warehouse in Sheffield.
@stevemcnary7963
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Blue Oyster Cult has this insane ability to bounce between genres. They've been metal, hard rock, blues, jazz, psychedelic, pop and probably a few others.
@Strimbles
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
They always talk about the weather first
@tjsststsjsjyksjgksjysjs7633
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
That's why I never liked Thunder & Lightning – they were too smart to play such a dumb kind of music. As a fan I want something much more sophisticated than generic heavy metal.
@modeljetjuggernaut4864
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Also, remember it vividly when Anthrax in an interview on mtv round 93 or 94, said they weren't a metal band…they were a rock band.
@modeljetjuggernaut4864
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I just think the original heavy bands of the early 70s didnt want to become synonymous with the dark n satanic likes of later metal like Venom, diamond head, Saxon, Priest..and then Slayer and..Cannibal Corpse 😅
@philipquail4044
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
The thing is, when we were 15 – and I'm the same age as you guys – we thought of ALL these bands as falling under the very broad umbrella of heavy metal. Certainly their FANS came, almost entirely, from the heavy metal fanbase. But the idea of what "heavy metal" is has become much more specific. Judas Priest is pretty much the ONLY mid-'70s band that proudly self-defines as heavy metal. Nearly every band denies the genre they're part of… Korn have said they're not nu metal, for god's sake.
@lancevelez1721
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
It's all hard rock or heavy rock for me. heavy metal is kind of a silly term as it has nothing to do with music by definition but to each his own.
@andrewkrelle7781
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Interesting conversation guys. growing up we looked at everything as rock or maybe heavy rock probably up to the late 70s. I remember at high school when one kid was into those first Iron Maiden and Def Leopard albums and I was into more Judas Priest and another older kid was like "Motorhead they are heavy metal and Kiss are a pop band". It really wasn't until the 80s and the NWBHM that I think the term Heavy Metal started to be used and started to be applied retro-actively. In fact the Term NHBHM implies the was an Old Wave of British Heavy Metal but we just didn't use the term until, as I said, the late 70s and early 80s. After about 83-84 we all knew what was heavy and what was hard rock.
On a side note since Martin mentioned them, I still maintain Krokus's Head Hunter is an absolute, massively underrated 80s metal album gem. Have you two done that as a show? "Gems that only you seem to know or talk about"
@jokersbonus
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Agreed on Martin's rant on Zeppelin's superiority complex. Still crazily overrated band, good in studio on their first four albums, quite uneven in their latest work, never good live after 1970 roughly.
@hearsedeluxe
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
RUSH: 70s Metal, rejected Metal during 80s and from 2002 on adopted Adult Metal (Lifeson words).
@bdctube
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I’d say Plant enjoyed the trappings for good period…but he’s was a well enough adjusted guy to get past it and into more interesting things as he saw them
@FNAFEDITS171
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Zeppelin did everything well Martin.
@magellanship
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Great Discussion, I do like seeing you two together no matter what the topic is.
@omind1
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Heavy is not fast. It's got an undertow . Paraphrasing Joe Carducci. Someone asked me decades Go where Metallica " came from". My response. Muddy Waters and Wagner . I wrote along side Martin in Lollipop. Craig Regala. Great take guys. Awaiting the Grunge was the return of post- psyche hard rock culturally – Dust, Sir Lord B. Blue Cheer et al
@itchyvinyl
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
TOOL is another band that shows a lot of metal traits (prog metal?) but the members look down on the genre and deny the label.
@LarryFleetwood8675
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I can totally see what Lemmy meant, by not calling Motorhead a metal band at least early on with Eddie's bluesy licks that really defined their melodic sound. Blues was very much a big ingredient of early Motorhead, later they did become metal but the early stuff was 'heavily' influenced by '50s rock 'n' roll – just sped up… In fact, if listening closely (behind the noise), it's very much like 'dance hall ballroom music' in the songs' structure, just very loud very fast and very gritty…not played 'nice' at all. 🤤Our grandparents likely would've danced to this, in orchestra big band arrangements back in the '40s and '50s.
@NicholasProm_PosersMustDie
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
I don't have time to watch this whole thing right now. Can anyone confirm if UFO and Blue Oyster Cult get discussed? This is a great topic, and one that definitely comes up on my show sometimes.
@RichWards-Wins
December 14, 2025 at 4:07 pm
Queen is heavy metal and about a dozen other genres too.
After 3 Heavy Rock albums Freddie wanted to move on to other genres and styles. Brian May however kept the metal torch burning thru the years.
Check out Queen: Ogre Battle and Gimme the Prize.
Also Brian May's Love Token and Resurrection.
Powerful Heavy Metal songs.
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