Is There A Connection Between Heavy Metal Music And Violent Behavior?

Norway's Imhotep Zine recently asked more than 60 heavy metal and hard rock musicians to answer the following two questions related to last month's shooting death of PANTERA/DAMAGEPLAN guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott: 1) Can aggressive music led people to kill others? 2) Is there any connection between heavy music and violence / killings / crimes against humanity? Several select responses follow:

Alex Skolnick (ALEX SKOLNICK TRIO, TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA, SAVATAGE, TESTAMENT):

"Unfortunately, any form of communication can get misinterpreted, whether it's music or words.

"What happened to Darrell was an unspeakable tragedy but doesn't reflect on hard music as a whole or even music in general. Religion has caused a lot more unspeakable acts of violence than music has, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of religion.

"The sad truth is that there are dangerous people out there who can be triggered by entities which most normal people aren't affected by."

Gene Hoglan (STRAPPING YOUNG LAD, DARK ANGEL, DEATH, OLD MAN'S CHILD, TESTAMENT):

"These people are VERY misinformed, and, by the looks of their articles, really have it in for heavy metal and anyone who listens to it or plays it.

"How could anyone seriously lay the blame back on Dime for some psychopath's delusional breakdown? No one came out to blame John Lennon for Mark David Chapman's murder of him, and he was under FBI scrutiny for years! Had he been in a metal band (or merely an avid fan),it would have been, 'Oh, he got what was coming to him,' and his death could have possibly been made fodder for some of the true haters out there.

"Music only becomes an issue when it can be used to enflame a story.

"When Charles Whitman climbed to that bell tower in Texas and gunned-down dozens of people, no one questioned his musical tastes. Chances are, him being from Texas, the 1960s, ex-military, he was into country/western music. Did that drive him to kill a ton of people, with its discussions of how 'I'm gonna take a gun and shoot my wife,' or 'I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die?' Sure it did. Is this this uninformed conjecture on my part? Of course it is. But it sure is easy to do...

"Now, some factions of black metal seemed to embrace violence against others... that's a subject I don't know what to do about...

"RIP, Dime. You are loved and missed...

Guy Marchais (SUFFOCATION):

"I think that growing up in a small town with only two ways out could also lead to violence. A kid that grows up in a small town usually can't stand it there, so they look forward to one of two things: play football or join the military. The boys usually play football because they are brainwashed and forced from a young age by their parents to play sports and stay out of trouble... ha, that's bullshit! And the girls are usually pressured to be in beauty pageants and/or become cheerleaders. Once they go through that shit they see there are only two ways out: go to college, where they will be away from home for the first time so they celebrate their freedom by endless drinking and partying (in other words they chose to go to college just to get away from home, and not to better their education) or join our 'great military' to, quote, 'travel the world?'

"Tell these kids the truth! Join the military and you can sometimes get the chance to kill innocent people and be forced by some suit in Washington to do things against your will. When, by the way, those same politicians would never think of sending their own kids to the military that they proclaim is a great direction for young lives to go in.

"I don't think this about all kids from small towns, but I do think this does happen to a lot out of small-town kids.

"As for the thing about Darrell and this kid that shot him and music... it has NOTHING to do with the music. That kid had a mental problem. That's why he did what he did.

"Did Clinton get a blowjob because he was an evil and bad politician? No, he did it because he was horny. Did Bush send all our troops to Iraq to get killed because he was trying to fight the war on terrorism and catch Osama? NO! He sent our troops to die for OIL and MONEY! Did that kid kill Darrell because of the music? How dumb does that sound? NO! He did it because he was crazy and an asshole.

"I only met Darrell Abbott once in my life, backstage at a PANTERA show, and there was nothing violent about him or his music at all. I think his music was fun. It was heavy and raw, like the type of person I think Darrell was. It was fun to listen too, like he was backstage. He was just a normal guy playing the style of music he and many others love.

"If I remember my history correctly, wasn't there once a guy that parents despised simply because of the way he moved his hips, and drugs led to his death. I guess his music forced the drugs upon him and that is what ultimately led to his death.

"So there you have it, Fifties music creates overdosing drug users and addicts, so don't listen to Fifties music. Metal creates violent killers, so be careful what you listen to because we are all just sheep and don't have minds of our own. Or do you suppose people are who they are and will be who they are no matter what?

"You can't blame every act of violence or addiction on what a person has in their CD player. No style of music is going to twist someone's arm to do something they didn't want to do. And that's it.

"I could go on forever about this shit. Without religion there would be no war, and without war there would be no religion. So let's get rid of them both and just be human.

"And don't get me wrong about our military, I support our military to protect and defend this country. I do not support politicians using our military to invade other countries for their own personal needs and greed, but nevertheless I do support our troops in Iraq.

John Bush (ANTHRAX, ARMORED SAINT):

"I think that heavy metal music is a real aggressive music form and sometimes the lyrics have that same kind of feeling to them — of being aggressive. It's attacking in the way that it is.

"Dimebag played in a very powerful way. His style, he was like a machine gun sometimes. Somebody who crosses the line from music to create it in a violent act is not seeing it for what it is. It's someone who is probably very too illusional.

"I think that it could be anything. It could be a video game, a movie, a lot of them are very violent.

"Back in the 18th Century people thought that classical music was making people have crazy thoughts. There's a poem that was written by Edgar Allan Poe that people thought was too dark. There's always going to be things that can be associated and then there will be people saying: 'That is the reason.' But I think that for a million PANTERA fans, you have one lunatic who lost his mind and decided to commit a violent act. You can't say the whole music style is responsible for that. It would be wrong.

"There was an incident in America not too long ago, during a basketball game. There was a big fight. So then I would say that basketball would make people wanna go fight. I play basketball, I love the game, and when I play with my friends it gets very heated and competitive, sometimes tempers. I almost had a couple of fights on the court. It's a huge difference, because it's a sport, but at the same there is a high level of competition and you just can be caught up in a moment. So the same could be said for an incident like that and it was a basketball game. There are isolated incidents. That's what they are. Isolated incidents.

"This person who committed this crime, he was sick... something was wrong with him. The music perhaps triggered more of his sickness, but I don't think that the average person close to heavy metal music and even those caught up in the lyrics and the aggressiveness wants to go out and commit a crime. This guy was a fan of Dimebag. How does this person become such a maniac that he goes out and kill his idol?"

Read all the responses, including those from current and former members of KING DIAMOND, GAMMA RAY, TWISTED SISTER, WARRANT, CELTIC FROST, STRATOVARIUS, THE HAUNTED, IRON MAIDEN, WHITESNAKE, OZZY OSBOURNE and BLACK SABBATH, at this location.