new thread
For those of you interested in heavy metal music:
I've noticed that quite a few metal artists start out in their early days with long hair and, some 10-15 years into their career, opt for very short cuts or shave their heads. Members of Metallica, Dream Theater, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and many other bands have done this.
Why do you suppose they do it? Is it just a change of style/opinions/life philosphy or can it be cause by health reasons (like too much shedding or deterioration from too much headbanging)?
Hate to say it but maybe they have no choice.....the ravages of
drugs/alcohol do a number on their bodies.
Ultimately if you want nice hair you have to take care of your
body, and too many of these artists treated their bodies like
a sewer.
Pretty much the reasons you stated, I would assume. Their desired image may changed, they may get sick of messing around with it while touring and playing, they may be balding. Or maybe they're changing to attract a new audience :P
Matt
It's that simple. Well, that, and long hair stopped being trendy. But that's all the reason most people need. You have to remember, these people grew their hair out to be trendy in the first place. Now that it's not, what's the point?
Most people on this site are doing it because they want to, regardless of trend. That's a different desire. Long hair is our goal. Their goal was the music, which needed an image.
For every one of those bands you mentioned, there are thousands more where they have long hair. Metal exists beyond the most popular bands, and there are thousands and thousands of metal bands, 95% of which have long haired members.
Well, contrary to a few of the other comments,not all metal musicians grow their hair just because it's trendy and not all metal musicians are drug addicted.
I think that most guys who grow their hair longer generally do not do so with a long term goal in mind or the right mindset to develop in them the desire to keep it long into the future.
In the case of music we are talking about a select few who are successful enough to catch the attention of some of us. Of course we are aware of the trends in music and in fashion so anyone in the entertainment business tends to be subject to a degree of that including metal musicians, especially those few who are in the "big time". When they achieve a certain level of success they get to know a whole different group of industry professionals and then come under new pressures (often ideas) from those people trying to direct their careers.
As music goes in trends every several years so then does the careers of musicians and many of them return to the regular work world as the rest of us and many give in to those pressures to not have long hair. The fortunate ones who do last more than several years also continue to age and some of them just want a change as most folks do but others begin to lose their hair and abandon the longhair thing altogether.
Now the rank and file musicians in the metal scene are very subject to trends but not because they particularly realize it. The short hair and bald heads you see a lot of now are examples of this. The ranks are continually replenished with young players who often are not familiar with much past a few or several years ago and begin to blend genres; this includes styles from all corners of the larger scene. Along with this is the fact that having to deal with no hair is (as always) easier than dealing with long hair, which is why most folks don't have very long hair. Many of these musicians also still have other jobs and keep their hair shorter for that.
The longer a music genre is around the more people "become" a part of it. This means that you will have more diversity over time and since the overall trend in society is to have short hair then it follows that this will be seen in the music scene as well. But as music genres go, metal still appears to have more longhairs than any other.
As we know, long hair still catches your attention more than short hair and this is one of the reasons it has flourished in music so well, but the larger music scene just forgets that every now and then.
I have to disagree. When I was in college I ran alot of the
rock concerts. The vast majority were high as a kite,
drugs and booze were prevelant.
I won't name some of the artits but it was amazing that
some of them were sober enough to walk from the backstage
area to the stage itself.
All you have to do is look at some of these aging rock stars.
They've abused so much drugs over the years it is
amazing they're alive much less have any hair, aren't
deathly ill, or flat broke.
so, what your saying is ALL metal musicians are drug addicts?
and that, just isn't true.
I'll just say that there are all kinds of metal artists and enthusiasts as there are all kinds of people (and all kinds of long-hared people, for example). You may be surprised at how many people who work "intellectual" jobs are into metal.
Why do you suppose they do it? Is it just a change of style/opinions/life philosphy or can it be cause by health reasons (like too much shedding or deterioration from too much headbanging)?
I'd say it's mostly cos they've grown older and don't want to look like young headbangers anymore. All of the members of Dream Theater are in their 40s with wives and kids, so I guess they want to look somewhat respectable. But Petrucci is growing his hair back, so really it's only Rudess with short hair now!
Just a hint: Long hair on men generally looks VERY MUCH respectable imho, therefore, I'd have put "respectable" into quotation marks / parentheses. (Well, I'm being a "wise guy" ;-)
Hans-Uwe
Hahaha, your hair won't deteriorate from too much headbanging. In fact, there's no such thing as too much headbanging! Jason from Metallica cut his because he said he was facing headbanging related injuries in his neck, which was a total lie by the way....that's the only connection between hair loss and headbanging I can think of. I do it at concerts when I preform and when I'm in the audience, and I still have a head full of hair. The thing is, everyone gets a hair cut sometime.....let the older men on this board tell you, they've said it many a time. They've gone through many long and short styles and some will probably go through many more. The thing with the bands you speak of is most of them are too old now and are facing baldness to want to grow it back. Hahahaha, not everyone wants to look like Devon Townsend from Strapping Young Lad, which I happen to think is a cool look, but it's not for everyone. At least Dave Mustaine is still hanging in there! He's the man. And don't forget Jon Schaffer!!!!!!!
Sometimes it's because of changes in styles and preferences. When Metallica cut their hair, they interviewed James about it, and he said something about "Times are changing, and we change with it". But if you notice, Kirk still has long hair, and James has grown his longer than it was before.
Also, sometimes the hair was never about liking, some bands did it for the fad. For example, I had a friend who started a band, and they all ahd short hair, and wore normal day-to-day clothes. And althoguh their music could be classified has heavy metal, do to their image, they were labeled as Rock/Pop. When they started growing their hair and wearing more "rocker" clothes, they became known as a heavy metal band. Some bands haven't even adopted the long hair craze. For example, the only real longhair in the band Mudvayne is the guitarist Greg. The other guys have short hair... well the drummer has semi-longhair.
But the most important part is that even if they did cut their longhair, they can still rock. And isn't that the whole point of it?
I don't want to get too far off with the metal-relate talk, but this is somwhat related to the post, in that Matt Barlow, ex Iced Earth vocalist shaved his head and beard because he is now a police officer! I found out a couple of weeks ago that after 9/11 he wanted to do something for the "real world", instead of just being a "rock star". a google image search on him will show pre-post 9/11 pictures in the first few results.
Yes... quite possibly one of the most depressing stories in metal.
-Ardroth