Here are 10 bands that punks and metalheads can totally bond over
A long, long time ago, before there was “the scene” and the sonic buffet of Warped Tour there was… division. The punks deemed metal as boring and slow. Metal’s return fire was that the bands couldn’t play and the whole genre was “not music.” Fortunately we live in 2020 and that schism isn’t as entrenched as it used to be. This APTV clip highlights 10 bands that punks and metalheads can totally bond over.
Any music genre is filled with its own tribal laws and codes of what’s acceptable. Sometimes you can’t see the forest for the stereotypes. Punk’s one-two-fuck-you immediacy burned faster than a nitrous-powered funny car. Metal’s emphasis on musicianship generated some great songs. This writer remembers a member of Minor Threat casually proclaiming his love for a song that would have detonated his fans’ skulls. And if you were more metal than anything, you would certainly have been correct laughing off some of the tracks the punks created.
Read more: Here are 10 underrated albums every metalcore fan must hear.
However, around the mid-80’s, a consciousness was burgeoning. Punks and metalheads had already developed their specific networks with everything from record distros to venues to play. The underground metal bands started playing faster than their influential forefathers. The punks started slowing things down and learning more chords. But the crucial aspect to all of this is that both tribes began listening to each other’s records. Genres started to blur and the tides began to change.
Clearly, the bands in this video helped bridge the divide between punks and metalheads. The British trio who wore black not because it was cool, but because “it hides the dirt.” No one can forget the metal-thrashing mad NorCal unit who had a better collection of Misfits shirts than most Jersey poonks did. Did we mention the hip-hop unit who embraced everything that pushed back against the status quo? These are the bands who made punks and metalheads get over themselves so they could peel each other off the floor during circle pits.
