A few years back I got the itch, as I often do, to start a new podcast. I mostly ignore these itches as scratching just makes it worse, but this time I could not. I began writing and planning a solo show called Reid Messerschmidt Gets Metal. I was going to start it like this:

RMGM INTRO

Hello. I’m Reid Messerschmidt – a 34 year old father and husband. I have a house and many things – four vintage globes, a vinyl collection, and a desk job among them.

I’m a culture snob. An elitist. What’s charmingly known these days as a libtard cuck. A low T Beta, as they say. A snowflake.

I enjoy musical artists like Belle and Sebastian and Jimmy Scott and The Smiths and Edith Piaf and, sometimes – a lot, really – Neil Diamond. I think he’s criminally under rated and I like to talk about that opinion as though it were objective and important. I’ve spent significant time with the Pet Sounds boxed set and I love documentaries, Ingmar Bergman films, calling movies films, feelings, books about feelings, bike rides, progressive (not prog) agendas, and quietness. I don’t love injustice and toxic masculinity. I say things like toxic masculinity.

I’ve been known to sport a cardigan.

As such, I am not a metal guy. I like to think that I know good music when I hear it, regardless of genre, but metal is a blind spot. A big one. And I don’t just mean the music.

Metal is more than a genre, it seems to me. It has a built in culture, and that culture feels impenetrable and scary. I’ve dabbled around its edges, sure. I went through the requisite Metallica phase in Junior High-school. I saw Corrosion of Conformity live once. Also, Korn. I liked the former and not the latter, though, to be honest, I went into the Korn show with a pretty bad attitude.

Let’s see . . .

That Roots album by Sepultura is pretty rad. I predictably kind of like Deafheaven, as they are the metal band that guys like me are supposed to kind of like.

I enjoy what I’ve heard from Hawkwind, but I haven’t gone very deep with them and I’m not sure they’re very metal.

I think occult stuff is fun, but I didn’t care for the Lord of the Rings movies and I’ve never read the books.

I don’t care for dragons.

I’m not particularly angry. Occasionally perturbed? Yes. Often annoyed? Sure. Riddled with angst? Less, in my old age.

And not angry.

To me, at this point, metal represents rage, a spectrum of masculinity that I find completely foreign, and a complete disregard for fashionably good taste that a big part of me admires. It’s a home to a lot of unrepresented folks in the ongoing culture wars, some that I get, many that I don’t.

So I want to get metal. And that’s what this podcast is all about.

Getting metal.

I’ve made a list of every metal band that I can come up with, From Sabbath to Cannibal Corpse to whatever the fuck is going on with metal right now. I honestly don’t know. Based on some cursory internet searches, it looks to consist mostly of skinny guys with neck tattoos and Hot Topic haircuts calling each other fags and arguing about absurdly specific genres designations.

For the most part, I only know the band names. I’ve purposely tried not to really listen to any metal yet or find out too much about any one group.

I’ve chopped that list up and put it in something very metal – a skull to which I’ve applied Norwegian Black Metal makeup – and each week I’ll draw a name out of the skull, deep dive into whatever band comes out, and let you know what I find and what I think.

And guests. There might be some guests and whatever else comes up here.

My goal is not just to understand the music. I want to understand the culture. To understand the anger and the dragons. The term metal is broad to the point of meaninglessness, but under its tent are generations of unsatisfied and angry white folks in all the styles that those people come in. Folks that feel persecuted even if the “mainstream” sees that as a delusion.