Heavy Metal And Hard Rock Once Again Get Snubbed By ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME

EXODUS lead singer Steve "Zetro" Souza has complained to the New York Daily News about the fact that heavy metal gets little to no respect from the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, which on Tuesday unveiled its 2015 class of inductees. Lou Reed, GREEN DAY, Stevie Ray Vaughan and DOUBLE TROUBLE, Joan Jett and THE BLACKHEARTS, Bill Withers and the PAUL BUTTERFIELD BLUES BAND are the latest acts to get the nod, with the ceremony set to take place next April at Cleveland's Public Hall.

Despite the fact that artists are eligible for the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single, iconic hard rock and metal bands like DEEP PURPLE, IRON MAIDEN and JUDAS PRIEST have yet to be recognized by the institution, which inducted GUNS N' ROSES in that group's first year of eligibility.

"IRON MAIDEN goes to anywhere in the world and they play in front of 50,000 people by themselves and you telling me they don't fucking belong in there?," Souza told the New York Daily News.

"In our type of music, we don't expect kudos," he added. "But it's hard not to be disappointed by the voting."

VH1 Classic "That Metal Show" co-host Eddie Trunk echoed Zetro's sentiments, telling the New York Daily News: "How can you have a Hall Of Fame where it takes KISS, RUSH and Alice Cooper twenty years to get in, but GREEN DAY and GUNS N' ROSES go in on first ballot but it DEEP PURPLE doesn't get in."

DEEP PURPLE, which has been eligible for induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame for two decades now , was denied entry to the Rock Hall last year — losing out to such artists as American pop singer-songwriter Randy Newman and R&B singer Donna Summer.

Speaking to Chile's Radio Futuro, DEEP PURPLE singer Ian Gillan said about the prospect of being inducted into the Rock Hall: "Whatever I say about that is gonna sound wrong. But who the hell wants to be in an institution? The Hall Of Fame thing, it's an American thing. We don't have that in England or Germany or Australia or Russia or anywhere in the world apart from America. And it's an institution. What's that got to do with rock and roll? Also, it's run by these old guys who thought that THE MONKEES were America's answer to THE BEATLES. And they called DEEP PURPLE [Laughs]… I don't think they quite understand what we are… They called us one-hit wonders. So I don't know what they were talking about… whether it was 'Hush' or 'Black Night' or 'Strange Kind Of Woman', 'Smoke On The Water', 'Child In Time', 'Knocking At Your Back Door' or one of those one-hit wonders that we were… 'Highway Star'… I just don't know. And I guess the fans don't really understand it except in America. It's no big deal."

KISS, which was passed over by the Hall since 1998 before finally getting the nod this past April, took its long-overdue induction with a grain of salt, with frontman Paul Stanley telling Classic Rock that it felt like a case of a little too little and a little too late to mean anything for him, explaining, "It was done begrudgingly and because it had become absolutely ludicrous that they were choosing to ignore us. At the end of the day, most people don't realize that the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was a privately created establishment and that it has a self-appointed board. It's a perfect case of perception becoming reality. People heard 'Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame' and gave it credibility."

He went on to say: "So whether it deserves the title has to be weighed against who it inducts. So was it an honor to be nominated? No. It means a lot to the fans and I understand it because it's validation for them. So for that reason I accept graciously and accept on their behalf."