Forging the gospel of metal

Since its birth 30 some years ago, heavy metal has been the bastard child of rock'n'roll, ignored, mistreated, and misunderstood by the powers that be. In the publishing world especially, few have treated it with the respect that it deserves; the handful of nonscholarly books on the subject are often inadequate or omit subgenres like death metal. Enter longtime fan Christe, a freelance writer who has covered topics ranging from election law to skateboarding.

Fueled by a desire to validate heavy metal, he penned Sound of the Beast, the definitive tome on its history, culture, and social influence (see review, LJ 2/15/03). To say that the book is long overdue is an understatement. For although metal predates and has established just as many notable acts as the fashionable punk rock movement, rock scribes have not been kind to it.

"Punk is such an overrepresented musical genre in the literary world," Christe says. "The tiniest microcosms of the punk scene are now documented." Meanwhile, the exploits of master practitioners like Black Sabbath, Ozzy Osbourne, and Metallica, as well as epicenters like the San Francisco Bay Area, have been mainly overlooked. Christe traces the snub to the stereotype of heavy metal fans as longhaired, heavy-breathing cretins who seek the written word only on the side of a beer can. "One of the big misconceptions is that heavy metal fans don't read, which is so ridiculous," Christe says, who sports long hair himself. "If you whip out a lyric sheet to any heavy metal album—and they all take great pains to include lyric sheets—you see some of the most ambitious songwriting in popular music."

So when an editor from Avon approached him about composing a heavy metal history in 1999, Christe took great pains to prove his worth. That was the easy part. Like the myriad other metal fans in the 1980s, he had been trading tapes, so he understood the music's formation and entrance into culture.

Finding players who would support his effort wasn't so simple, however. Because of metal's stigma, Christe found that many pertinent sources were initially unwilling to sign on to the book. Soon, though, people began recommending other people, and eventually Christe won an audience with metal mainstays like Rob Halford, former lead singer of Judas Priest, and Dave Mustaine, frontman of Megadeath.

Though encyclopedic by nature, Sound of the Beast is surprisingly conversational and easy to follow through three decades and hundreds of bands. Part of the ease comes from Christe's wise choice to thread the rags-to-riches story of Metallica throughout the book. He says the decision was easy, as the band epitomized metal's basic tenet of self-improvement, not to mention the fact that the foursome soon became one of the most popular rock groups in the world, further validating Christe's belief that metal was indeed relevant.

Still, organizing a large chunk of musical history wasn't always an enjoyable task. "Sometimes I would watch World War II documentaries and wish that I only had to tell the story of a five-year period in Belgium," Christe says. "The scope was pretty big, and it did take me two or three years to get it right."

The end result is impressive, as Christe chronologically arranged metal's history while dissecting major movements—such as the 1990s death metal and world metal trends—along the way. Overall, it's an inspiring read for metalheads, who have been mired in poor books for years. Christe hopes his will be the first of many metal tomes to come.

"Maybe in ten years heavy metal will get its own Dewey Decimal number," he says.