MY BROTHER, THE METALHEAD

There was no point in knocking on his bedroom door…the music was always pounding, so I would just go in. Day or night, the blood-red curtains were drawn, casting an eerie, crimson glow over the room. Every wall was plastered with posters, and they would change as he became further indoctrinated into the church of heavy metal.

It started with the lighter sounds of early Van Halen and ended with the blistering darkness and speed of death-metal like Slayer.

Iron Maiden was supreme – the group dominated the landscape. The leering skeletal features of their mascot, Eddie, would glare down from every available surface, even the ceiling.

I was his little sister, two years younger, and I was his only sibling. By default, I became the sidekick and I learned everything about metal from Peter. I had absolutely no choice…there was no other topic - and no way to hang out with him - if you couldn’t "understand" the music.

My teenage life with Peter revolved around heated discussions of who was “heavy”. Metal musicians, I learned, could be defined by two categories: the aforementioned “heavy” or “true” metal (Maiden, Slayer, Metallica, AC/DC), or “poseurs”: (in his estimation, Poison, Yngwie Malmsteen, Quiet Riot).

These purveyors of “false” metal were simply not “heavy” enough… they were the enemy.

I have the funniest, fondest memories of good times with Peter, all of them linked to his total obsession with the music.

One day, Peter came home with a new shirt… it was a white Slayer T, with a death’s head in a Nazi helmet and the phrase Slayer SS Wehrmacht boldly inked out in large black letters.

Our father went ballistic. He’d been a good sport so far, putting up with the sleazy album covers, the audio assault of Voi Vod videos blasted through the rec room, the garish back-patches which Peter would wear on the back of his frayed Levi’s vest, the long hair…

But this was too much. The association with Nazism put my Dad over the edge and he threw my brother’s latest acquisition into the trash, in absolute disgust. My brother’s reaction was typical: Dad just didn’t “understand” Slayer.

Some nights, we would find ourselves in the tiny basement of Peter’s metal friend Jim’s record store. Growing up in a small town as we did, very suburban and proper, The Record Crypt was an anomaly. Compact, yet crammed with metal records, this entrepreneurial enterprise did not last long – however, Jim’s dreams for the Record Crypt were something that we could all respect.

Drinking Dr. MacGillicuddy’s Peach Schnapps out of a plastic bottle, with heavy metal coursing through my brain, I felt the first real stirrings of rebellion: I felt free.

I was getting into it, my preppy days a real contrast to this other life which consumed my free afternoons and evenings. I started to like Maiden, as Peter always referred to them, for real. I knew their story, from Paul Di’anno to Bruce Dickinson. In fact, it’s safe to say that I could have written their biography myself. To this day, I know their signs of the zodiac (Dickinson is a Leo).

Maiden were complex musically, that was the thing… they could really play. In addition, they were ambitious (unafraid of historical allusions and concept albums).

Maiden told stories, and when Peter finally took me to see them, I was really excited.
He took me to everything we could get to - Maiden, Megadeth, AC/DC, Guns ‘N’ Roses (in St. Petersburg, Florida, with a million scary bikers in attendance) and a Judas Priest show so effing loud we actually had to leave early because our ears hurt so much.

I remember the hum of anticipation in the arenas as the lights dimmed, as well as the warm, overpriced beer and the bad hot dogs that I ate there. I remember one time in Montreal when we went to see the Stones and had, arguably, the worst seats in the house. Hardly able to see or hear anything, we still partied. Peter would occasionally veer away from metal, but only for really good classic rock like the Stones. Gimme Shelter and other select tunes were “heavy”.

I liked Duran Duran as well as heavy metal – after all, I was a typical girl in the Eighties. I liked the Ace of Spades and I knew who Lemmy Kilmister was, but I was not authentically hard-core. My “crappy” taste in music was regarded with the cruelest mockery. The only Duran Duran Peter could stomach was the Girls on Film video, with the “naked chicks”.

Whenever I see Beavis and Butthead on TV, Butthead reminds me of my own dear brother.

Hours of my adolescence were wasted listening to Peter outline the whole Dave Mustaine vs. Metallica feud. I would lie around in his room, reading every metal magazine, every tour programme, every liner note from every 12” Maiden picture disc, ordered at great trouble and expense from Japan or the UK. Peter was just a paperboy, but he always found a way to get the metal he needed.

Now we’re in our forties…we are, I suppose, bona fide adults.

Whenever I see my brother, we still talk metal. I still know every word of every Maiden song - I always will. Last Christmas, I got Peter an “Aces High” black Maiden sweatshirt, unsure if he would still have the courage to wear it at his age. Eddie grinned sadistically from the cockpit of a WWII fighter and the graphic was all in a glowing, poisonous green.

He wears it proudly. He’ll be a metalhead forever, loyal and true. He’s the heaviest of fans, a connoisseur and a collector. He’s also the coolest of brothers and I thank him for the heavy metal memories.