My Journey to the Black Metal 

I’ll never forget the moment black metal clicked for me. I was 18, sitting in the back of a car driving through Denmark towards the ferry to Norway, still hammered from a weekend of nonstop boozing. Dunkelheit by Burzum started playing on the stereo, I’d heard it played by my friends before but just couldn’t understand it. In my semi-awake state, still drifting on alcohol, the piano notes drowned out the “static” of the music, and the only thing I heard was the beautiful “pling pling pling, pling pling pling.” I’ve been hooked ever since to the diverse landscape that is metal.

Black metal is like coffee. You have to learn to like it, but when you do, you want it darker and darker.

As you once said, Transylvanian Hunger is hipnotic and you never get bored of it. Still one of my favorite albums of all time.

Everyone here listening for black metal for years, but it's only been a few months for me (i'm only 18 tho so yea) Discovered metal and rock in general very recently and it feels like a new world for me, in a few months i've gone from red hot chili peppers and linkin park to leviathan, darkthrone and Këkht Aräkh and i'm having the time of my life

I love listening to metalheads talking about their journey to more and more extreme genres! If anyone's interested about my journey: It all began when I was 9 or 10 (I was born in 2004) and the Polish edition of "Your Face Sounds Familiar" had started. My family and I were gathering in front of TV watching this TV show. Robert Rozmus (Polish actor) has chosen Alice Cooper and his song "Poison" to sing. All I can say is that it totally blew my mind! Then I was listening to artists and bands like Alice Cooper, Kiss, AC/DC and my parents showed me Pink Floyd and Queen. in 2015 I got into Metallica (and listened only to "Black Album" 😆). 2016 - I got into Iron Maiden and Acid Drinkers (Polish thrash metal band). 2017 - while watching "Ukryty polski megamix" (a legendary Polish YT series of "hidden" Polish phrases in non-Polish language songs) I heard Behemoth and their song "Decade of Therion" because the part "We transgress the context of commonplaces" sounds like "Łyżwiarz wie że kotek odkopał prezent" what means "The skater knows the kitten has dug up the gift" 😆). It was my first time listening to death/black metal and enjoyed it a lot! Can't believe it's 5 years already! Then I was exploring both classic metal bands and black/death metal bands. Same year I got into Dimmu Borgir and Burzum. In 2018 I was still exploring the world of classic black metal but in the meantime I got into symphonic metal because of Epica and viking metal because of Bathory. In 2019 I got into doom metal, especially into funeral, death and gothic doom metal bands because of Solitude Production's radio. And that's my story, thanks for reading! 😄\m/

My first Black Metal album was Filosofem Burzum and my first Black Metal band I listen and I fall in love with other Black Metal bands.

Since I was 8 years old I had a secret passion for rap, but when I was 12 years old my sense of looking for heavy music began... there I met the paradigm of metal

My journey into black metal was great. I was apart of the sort of underground metal scene in Oslo around the late 80s-90s, and wasn’t until 91 when I got involved with black metal. I was a drummer, and the only musicians I knew hung around an old record shop called Helvete. Here I got to meet a ton of guys, most notably Euronymous and Burzum (varg, or whatever his name is now). I’m a darker skinned man and really Norway was filled with a bunch of random racism at the time. Burzum was actually a nice guy, and it’s weird seeing how he’s changed. He was never openly racist towards me, and would often shake my hand and talk about music and recording when we saw each other. For some reason or another, Oystein (euronymous) would always come talk to me and was a really really nice guy and was constantly trying to find me more music when I ran out, and point me to records in his shop. And that’s exactly how I got into black metal. Oystein introduced me into a ton of people and the community was one that embraced me and gave me friends I still know today. I got to meet Pelle Ohlin (dead) once, and was, for lack of a better term, the black metal chuck schuldinger. He was super sweet and kind, and he never really hung around Helvete as far as I know but I got to meet him through the community. It was very embrace full of me, a dark skinned man, which wasn’t something I had seen a lot. The racism ideaology in black metal is one of the dumbest misconceptions of all time. I basically looked like a slightly darker hellhammer at the time and had tons of friends who wore swastikas in pictures, and would immediately take them off after. These people never meant it, the most extreme thing someone could do was do something a nazi did, and that’s why black metal musicians especially in Norway did that. It was just extreme, and would offend people, which was the intention. Many of them, including varg, never really believed in Nazism. But yea, that’s how I got into black metal.

As 38 year old metal head my journey to this genre was almost identical like yours.. And I still love Black Metal from the bottomles pit of my heart...

I started with Johnny Cash and CCR, then i got into Pink Floyd. When i was 15 i worked with a guy a year older than me as a groundskeeper and he introduced me to heavy metal. He tried getting me into slayer and anthrax and death metal, but i never liked it. Then he showed me a marylin manson song (i dont like manson lol) and then i went home that day and listened to Paranoid by Black Sabbath and fell in love. Then eventually i started listening to Black Metal, especially Mayhem. Nowadays I don't really listen to much black metal, i still enjoy Live in Leipzig. After that i got into the doom/stoner/sludge stuff and i still love it today, but ironically enough, Death Metal is now my favourite genre of music and Slayer is my favourite thrash band. My taste is still pretty varied tho, as my top 5 favourite bands/artists are; Black Sabbath Pink Floyd Death CCR Johnny Cash

i got into metal because of my mom. Glad that she has good taste on music lol

Everyone's sharing their metal stories, and it's actually one of my favorite transitions I've undergone through at almost 19 now to tell people. I was born into a IFB (Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Christianity, basically the "preacher" runs his own independent church and uses the bible in whatever way he feels, and calls himself a prophet) doomsday cult. My family on my mom's side were always preachers in the u.s., and more rather the scary ones that will do anything to convert you. I used to hide CDs my mom would sneak me when we were involved with the doomsday cult, because we only were allowed to listen to permitted gospel music, and I mean like the really boring "I love Jesus" piano music, because acoustic guitar is a well known open door for Satan to crawl out of hahah. We were allowed *limited* bluegrass, but if it even mentioned something to do with alcohol, tobacco, or women in general (vices that corrupt a mans soul, and the majority of topics for bluegrass). But the CDs my mom gave me were so varied, early classical compositions, gypsy kings, folk music, and Weird Al, who was my hero at the time in elementary school hahahah. I grew up at the time being really socially outcast by every kid I was around in school and the church, because of my anxiety around people because of the "end is nigh and I want to survive the rapture" mentality, and especially considering I've always been a giant compared to everyone around me. I was scary, and scared all at once. My mom removed us from the church around me entering 6th grade, and at that point I got diagnosed with extreme depressive disorder, and had very prominent suicidal tendencies. My grandma who was still involved with the church, always told me how we were "the churches black sheep", and had me convinced by age 9 that I was the antichrist hahah. I had given up on all my passions, and I just only ever stayed inside my room, sleeping or laying on the floor, wanting to just die. I stopped listening to music until my freshman year of highschool, and it's when my life really changed. See, I always loved music, and playing instruments, singing, but I threw that away for years, because I was convinced if anything with the slightest bit of gain was played around me, I'd be ripped in half by Satan. Once I got into highschool, indie became fairly popular with Mac Demarco and people like that, and I finally felt like I was ready to try music again. Through the course of highschool, each band I found was progressively harder and harder, but I always stopped once I got to hardcore punk. I wanted to try more extreme sounding music, but I knew absolutely no one into metal, the only extreme genre I knew was death metal (only knowing cannibal corpse of course), and I really disliked the gutterals and gorey imagery. Once I reached my Junior year though, right before covid, this guy my mom had been dating moved in with us into our apartment. I'll call him Dan, but Dan was the first metalhead I really ever met. And he was from Massachusetts, right next to Boston. Dan absolutely loved death metal, and had been involved with the music since the initial American explosion (keep in mind, he would've been reaching highschool when Death got their name on the map). He lived a hard fuckin life, but by the age of 16, he was playing bass in bands that played all the dive bars in new england, opening for bands like Wargasm in their prime. It had its side effects on him (becoming an alcoholic by 21), but he is probably the most talented musician I've ever had the honor of meeting. When he moved in, I was dissilusioned with punk, because personally I didn't like politics in my music, and while I loved the fast, angry sounds, I didn't like the lyrics because it wasn't something I personally could relate to (I didn't live during the Regan administration of course). I didn't get along with Dan for the first bit admittedly, but eventually I went with him about my aforementioned problem of not understanding metal, but wanting to get into it so bad. For betum, I told him "I really like the death metal bands you show me, like Portal and Deicide, but I always get turned off by the vocals. Like it's impressive, the gutterals, but I just can't listen to it for some reason. I just would like something like death metal, but maybe with higher pitched vocals." Dan had only gotten into black metal after he moved to North Dakota and Minnesota (where all the Scandinavians live), because he's a trucker and just put on bands that had those ambient, desolate soundscapes he saw through driving in the winter alone in our states. He knew practically nothing about the genre, other than the vocals were exactly what I described to him as wanting. He told me. "Well, you seem pretty into you're family being full blown Norwegian, and the genres is pretty much the exact way you explained it, so try Black Metal. It's the shit in Norway that had the people who burned churches and killed each other" I asked him to start, and he gave me two albums to listen to, Bathory's self titled, and Darkthrone's Transylvanian Hunger. Bathory almost immediately stuck with me, and Quorthon is a hero to my music. Darkthrone on the other hand, of course since the album is pretty much the essence of Raw Black Metal, took a while. I refused to listen to any other music, and only played that album every day, every second of every hour, at school and home and work,for a month straight, until I understood it. One day, I put it on as I had been forever, and all of the sudden it wasn't just noise to me. It was guitars, drums, and the most hard hitting vocals I had felt in my life. It just clicked. From there, I started listening to more and more second wave bands, some first wave ones, and eventually found my preferred niche of DSBM with Leviathan, and I completely changed how I presented myself. I used my already tall and huge frame and long hair to just scare people more for the hell of it, got my first bullet belt, made my first actual vest, moving onto a leather jacket after saving up money. Just a couple years in now, and a genre of music that would've made myself back in elementary/middleschool start crying immediately, has provided so much weird "healing" and comfort in the most hard and uncomfortable periods of life for me. Looking into the mirror nowadays with old photos, I can't quite fully pin down why I settled fully on black metal so quickly, but it's probably one of the best decisions I've made in my life, ever. That was a way longer tangent than I meant to type, but yeah hahah. There's mine, hailz!

I remember the first time I heard Freezing Moon by Mayhem. At first I was a little uneasy about the evil sounding riff and vocals. But then I kept coming back to it and now I’m an avid Black Metal fan 🤘🏻🤘🏻

There's not enough black metal content in the world! I love that RU-vid is able to connect metal heads around the world.

I really think these kind of videos are very interesting; I always love to hear about peoples musical journey, its such a personal and unique story for most of us...

You just got a like when you said that modern production is too clean and has no soul. Absolutely agree! Thanks for sharing you journey

It was not boring. Thank you, Farvann, for sharing your life experience

I was and still am a huge Nirvana fan since i was 12-13, got into Nu Metal in grade 9 which eventually introduced me to Metallica, Slayer.....then a metalhead was born

My metal journey started this year in may. A little bit earlier I really liked ghost, my dad was listening to it in the car. I really liked, I listened to them for a while, and still do. Then I started to dig more into metal a bit. I learned about genres and stuff. In july i went to my first metal concert - 3 bands: headen, exodus, and testament. I really liked it, despite sound being a bit messed up, you couldn't really hear the riffs. When I went home my dad showed me how good can metal get, he introduced me to megadeth's rust in peace, and slayer's hell awaits. I've listened to these bands, and a month ago, when school started I wasn't in a mood for thrash, so I've put on candlemass, because I heard ghost was a bit inspired by them. I really liked them. Also in this time i started listening to mayhem's de mysteriis dom satanas, and it is when I discovered how great black metal can be. Now i'm getting into more black metal bands like immortal or darkthrone. My metal journey has begun

@ Farvann You nailed it at 11:59 My journey (to the stars) started back about 1994 or so I heard rumors of a crazy satanic band from Norway that ate their dead bandmates brains! My friends played some for me a bootleg of a bootleg ...or so I thought due to the production quality. I could only take a few songs and I was like, can we go back to AC/DC, or Slayer? Then about a year ago I clicked on this band called Burzum, and the song "Key to The Gate". (looks over shoulders) It almost made me cry, I rank it as the third saddest song I have heard. I saw a review ov "Dunkelheit", thanks Vin and Sori. And then I saw your video ov how to listen to your first Black Metal and I was off....into the void. It all came together when I realized that they are sad songs not angry songs, okay angry songs too. Thanks, Farvann.

For me and thousands of people in eastern germany it was RADIO what brought me to extreme metal. As the GDR slowly dissolved, the GDR youth program opened up to new influences and there was a weekly program on the legendary GDR youth radio DT64 called "Tendenz hart bis heavy". There two presenters took turns on a weekly basis, one played more traditional heavy metal, i.e. Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Halloween, Running Wild etc. The second presenter played extreme metal. And of course, as 11-12 year olds, we recorded it all on tape. That's where I heard Mentally Murdered by Napalm Death for the first time and I really couldn't believe it. We found it funny, but also cool. At that point we were all into Thrash Metal - Slayer, Sodom, Destruction, Kreator etc. that was 1989. One day a friend arrived with a tape that had the most extreme song I had ever heard. The vocals sounded like the singer was having the worst temper tantrum. Unfortunately we didn't know what it was and played the song to every metalhead we knew until one of the older ones was able to tell us: this is BATHORY and the song was "Pace Til Death". I didn't know it was black metal at the time, for us it was just extreme trash metal, but I bought all of Bathory's early albums after and after. Then a friend of mine came with Benediction's first album on tape and it was a whole new world - those down-tuned guitars, those abnormally deep vocals, the whole atmosphere. We probably listened to the tape three or four times in a row that first afternoon. From then on I knew I wanted more of this extreme stuff. Then came the death metal years of the early nineties and at some point "A Blaze In The Northern Sky" came out. I bought the album and my death metal friends made fun of it - "the production is shit, the vocals sound ridiculous" etc. A few months later they were all able to sing along to "In The Shadow Of The Horns".

my first black metal band i found was dissection and i’ve loved black metal ever since

I think my introduction to black metal, was "In Sorte Diaboli" by Dimmu Borgir. I liked it, but never really got into the genre at that point. Fast forward 10 years or so, I was offered to host a black metal festival, had to write an article explaining black metal and... Well...... The rest is history. Oh and as for getting into metal in general... Well erm... Metallica, need I say more?

I am almost 40-ty years old. I love hard staff when I was a kid. When my dad listen his vinyl such as Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. When I became older I start to interest in rock/metal music. When I was 12, the older guys gave me records of Metallica, AC/DC, The Offspring. And Metallica became my number 1 band. Then on tape with some rock ballads I hear Tiamat's song '''Gaia"... It was like revelation for me and then I bought two of Tiamat albums - Clouds and Whildhoney. It was my way to more heavy stuff - Crematory, Sepultura, Carcass, Obituary, Anathema, Bal-Sagoth, Moonspell. And about 16, I like to listen death metal - Morbid Angel, Hate Squad, Malevolent Creation. I heard some black metal stuff - Satyricon 'Nemesis Divina', Immortal 'Blizzard beasts, Cradle of filth 'Dusk and her embrace', but never truly liked such music. I like corpsepaint, leather and spikes))) About 20-21 I start to listen industrial - Rammstein, Ministry, Ooomph, Megaherz. Then about 30 my interest in music almost fade away. But abouy 5 years ago I understand that music is a big part of my life. So, I like to listen music from my childhood and new records from old bands. Also discover some new bands for me such as Sabaton and Alestorm. Now I have no any particular favorite genre of music. Sometimes I listen even pop music, or classic, but prefer misic whith electro guitars) But for example in autumn I prefer to listen My dying bride, Lake of tears, Type O negative. And during summer I can listen such bands as Pro-Pain, Clawfinger, Cypress Hill or Pantera. I had about 1000 CDs when I was 18 - 25 years old. Now my collection is small. I have about 300 CD with my favorite bands which I listen about 30 years and some new ones.

That was a very interesting video. My journey started only 4 years ago. I liked some basic rap before that and I also had been an ACDC fan. Then I found Linkin Park especially when Chester died and I fell in love. Then I discovered more nu-metal bands and some classic metal aswell. Metallica sounded so damn heavy and dangerous that it took me a while to get used to them. The next step was Slipknot and Trivium, which helped me to like screamed vocals. Then I found a finnish thrash-metal band called "Mokoma" which introduced me to heavier metal. Also finnish melodeath/folk metal bands helped that. Finally Death got me into death metal. Black metal was just a meme at first but then I found Alcest and Havukruunu. Alcest introduced me to blackgaze, athmospheric BM and even to shoegazing and alternative rock, while Havukruunu was closer to "real" BM. Besides these two bands, I think that Transylvanian hunger was the first black metal song I really fell in love with. So yeah, no one probably cares but I wanted to share this.

Metallica was the band who kept me in Me✝️AL music nd , Slipknot and Korn were the bands who threw me in Metal and helped me a lot I can say...

It’s fun, I was born in 1989 too. I don’t remember how I began to listen Rock and Metal. I remember I took music from my brother (On 2004 maybe before he downloaded music by torrent) : System of a Down, Linkin Park, Blink 182, Sum 41. To put them on my USB key/MP3/wav. I loved watch MTV and other music channels. I appreciated Daft Punk and Gorillaz. The first CD I bought was System of a Down - Mezmerize. We exchanged our USB keys with classmates, and I discovered on TV too: Metallica, Slipknot, dimmu borgir, rammstein, gogira, cradle of filth, children of bottom, Korn, soulfly, sepultura, pantera, apocalyptica, The Rasmus, Caliban, Killswith Engage, Stone sour, trivium, dragonfire. After at University 2010 I was still with apocalyptica and Metallica. And discovered Kpop around 2012. And after a long 9 years relationship and breakup. I returned into Metal, apocalyptica, Metallica, killswitch engage, and discovered Rhapsody of fire, Stratovarius, Iron Maiden. I remember my father had Vinyls of them, remember the covers. My mother told me she didn’t find them. I am sure they are still at my parents’home, Vinyls can’t disappear, I want them, they are my soul. I lost myself in a relationship. Since I moved lonely, I refound, what I really love : The voices of men singers, longs hair, total black look (like me), sounds of electric guitar and cello, and meaningfull lyrics which totally correspond to my personality. (INFJ or INTJ) Many days I sing at home Eagleheart from Stratovarius and Unforgiven from Metallica.

On a school field trip to Auschwitz in winter of '98 I got bored and hid earphones under my beanie. Had never listened to BM before. Borrowed a tape from a friend and right when we entered the gas chambers I got blasted with Dimmu's Mourning Palace. Words cannot describe that feeling. Still gives me goosebumps 24 years later.

I got into metal in the early 90s. Saw Sepultura live before Max left and many more bands... I eventually discovered black metal and became friends with local bands. Ended up going on the road with them a lot and met lots of cool folks and saw thousands of bands. I used to hang out with Pest from Gorgoroth, helped carry him out of the woods when he passes out drunk one time. Cool dude. He did the vocals on my friends bands last album, band called Blood Stained Dusk. When Korn came out I got mad that it was ruining metal, lol. But I guess I was over reacting and their first album was okay I guess, just not really my style.

Agreed that {IOWA} is still heavy...

My Journey: My dad showing me Metallica when i was a kid, then my older brothers showing me Korn, Slipknot, Static-X, etc. Then I got into Tool which got me used to longer songs, then I got into Gojira, then Meshuggah, then Opeth, then Death, and then my first black metal band was Emperor with the album In the Nightside Eclipse.

11:59 I know that feel. I felt it while I was listening to Olhava - Ladoga album, this thing is so meditative, I thought for a second that music itself is speaking to me. I was frigthened a bit but also I felt the whole atmosphere of the album, it was so noble.

I've been in Metal for thirty years now. I was born with thrash and then moved in death and then in black. Now Black Metal is my favourite style (even DSBM).

The first black metal record I ever heard was Samael “ceremony of opposites. A friends big brother got rid of his collection and we got a lot of music. I’d been into death metal already but never heard black metal. Samael was not like true black metal but it was the band that opened the door for me. I think it was 96’ or so. That record changed everything for me as a young 16 year old. Melodic, mid tempo and evil. It’s a classic record for me.

8:21 I can absolutely relate this, I was at the Rockharz Open Air in 2019, I was 15 years old, and Children of Bodom played there. It was one of their last concerts because Alexi Laiho died at the end of the year. I didn't know Children of Bodom back then so I didn't watch their show... Today Children of Bodom is one of my favorite bands and I hate myself for not watching their show because I'm never going to see them again...

Morbid and mayhem were my first black metal bands

Black metal is still new to me, is been like 2 or 3 years now since I first listened to crimson moonlight, though at the beginning I didn't think it was for me till I started to listen to more bands, renascent got me interested and black metal and from there I went further actively searching, I later found slechtvalk, skald in veum and some others, but it was when I first listened to immortal that I picked up speed, I fell in love with most of there songs with my favorites blashyrk mighty ravendark, tyrants, and all shall fall, were dark and light don't differ, and right after that I went to dimmu borgir, wasn't sure at first if I like it till later on, same with old man's child which I immediately discovered with dimmu borgir in one of the albums I forgot what was called but both were in it, from then on I got into alot of other stuff like archgoat and mgla, and so forth, I can't even remember how many bands I listened to though I can always go to my Playlist and see, though I've seen to have collected alot of songs, though am thankful that I got bored of demon hunter because that was the reason I decided to research metal and opened up a world of metal I never really knew existed

I appreciate you sharing this. Honestly my journey started along similar lines. I started getting interested in rock and mainstream metal as I had a friend that was into it. He gave me the Linkin Park Hybrid Theory and Tool lateralus albums. I fell in love with it. Although there are some key differences here as I ended up closer to the death metal side of things although i listen to all kinds of metal. Another key difference is that I grew up in a religious community and household. My progression into metal was met with extreme resistance. Not just giving me a really hard time but actively preventing it. I was working on a collection of albums as well as downloads, my parents threw away my entire collection and not only deleted my entire collection of downloads but also my profile which ended my Internet access for years to come. Unfortunately this didn't end upon becoming an adult as the ex wife decided to continue that mission to save my soul from the evils of metal music. Although what they hadn't considered is that all they had really accomplished was creating resentment and determination. So yeah my progress has definitely been slower but I'm grateful for the music it's definitely my great obsession and brings a great deal of joy. I appreciate you sharing this because i think it's important to remember that it's not always very easy to get into and people typically don't start with the brutal stuff. I definitely agree that it does take some getting used to. The brutal stuff can be a bit too much at first. Personally i still listen to the stuff i started out on. I see it as a important part of my journey to get here as it wouldn't have been possible without it. I never would have known that the stuff I'm more interested now had even existed.

Thank you , Farvann, for this cool video ! It was really interesting !

When I was little, Black Metal is the trending topic in Malaysian media but they talk about it in a very bad light! I feel very afraid and I didn't even dare to search for it in the Internet but everything changed for as soon as I turned 18 years old in 2019! I decide to ignore the government's warnings and I let my ears listen to Black Metal for the first time. I never regret the decision since then! #supermax

It's always kind of therapeutic to describe your musical journey. I did not have any musical mentors or many friends who suggested bands to me, so I have been slow on the uptake. I am only recently getting into black metal, maybe only 1 year or so, and it has been nice.

Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory is a classic :)

Was getting high at my weed dealers house in 1994ish. Grade 12 after school and he put on a Bolt Thrower song called Embers. It instantly clicked with me and my mind was blown, of course next was Slayer and Sepultura. Mind blown again! Ever since that day I've been a huge fan of Death Metal and Black Metal. We have a public radio station hosted by random people and one late night show was called Metallurgy, hosted by a guy named Larry Lava. He really pushed the metal scene and I am grateful to him for introducing me to Black Metal and Death Metal bands I'd likely have never heard of until the Internet.

When you are out of main stream, you discovering new bands, new sounds and it will never end. That is the best thing! Try Sceptic from Poland.

I grew up on Wayne’s World and Santana and I always loved rock, and have a long complex story with rock and metal. Music Videos on tv and AOL and Yahoo music are also significant to my story as well as Metal-Archives and metal magazines like Metal Maniacs. I am 33 so I was born in 1988. So I have a very similar experience to you Farvann. I just not have been fortunate to be able to go to any metal festivals, but I have been to battle of the bands when I was in college. I really like Cradle of Filth a Gothic romance, and Darkthrone’s Goatlord. My favorite bands are Celtic Frost, and Darkthrone. I really like venom and Bathory and Saxon and those are really bands. I also really like Slayer and overkill and exciter and exodus and annihilator.

In 2004, I got into black metal via Dimmu Borgir, at age 15. Used to watch Progenies of the Great Apocalypse on Yahoo Music. Then, I've found Iceberg Radio on the Internet and they had a black+death metal channel, learning about Behemoth, Cradle of Filth and plenty other extreme metal bands. Now, the online radio station doesn't play black and death metal anymore. Also, stole music from my neighbor, who made a network for all the flats, before the Internet got a relevant speed for pirating, and got even underground bands. Finally, Myspace came and found basically all Romanian active black metal bands at the time. What a journey!

I grew up in a small town in Sweden, me and my closest friends had a "Club Metal" where we would hang out and listen to CDs and copy tapes off eachother. Later it was sick lists on winamp with ill-gotten .mp3s... Metallica, Blind Guardian and Helloween was the shit. In the mid 00's some of the "big scary" kids started black metal bands, spikes, corpse paint and all. They scared the shit out of us but we would hang around the back of the youth center and watch their shows in a combined state of fear and fascination. To me then it was the most evil, chaotic shit I had ever heard. The start of a journey.

My journey - classic rock - alternative rock - punk - hardcore - death metal - black metal - I always wanted something harder.

You're the same age as me dude haha this brought back memories, though my journey has been all over the place in different directions as well. for me it was like: My parent's country music (I can't stand it now) Backstreet Boys and N'Sync. Still have one or two songs Smash Mouth a massive classic rock/hair metal phase through my dad, Boston became my lifelong favorite band. Foreigner, Rush, Kansas, BoC, Styx, Van Halen, Supertramp, Triumph, etc. Then a buddy showed me Metallica - had a huge Metallica phase until I learned about Megadeth. Rust in Peace was the first album I went out and bought. Listened to those two nonstop and then was introduced to Iced Earth and Dream Theater (early stuff) and was blown away. The I just started absorbing music like a sponge. I downloaded anything and everything rock and metal and began keeping what I liked and deleting what I was tired of. Got into SOAD and Slipknot and Korn pretty hard after that, Mudvayne too. Drowning Pool and Alice In Chains Dirt were huge influences as well and got me into heavier vocals and the depressing side of music. Primus became a big one too and listened to them all the time. Chimaira, not really death metal, but boy did they slap and they were the ones that truly opened the door for me into extreme metal. I used to be Mormon and went on a church mission for 2 years and some other missionaries actually got me to explore Metalcore, Punk, and shit like that, so now I like some of that blended into my taste as well. I got home from my church mission and went to college where I really had freedom for the first time. I searched and downloaded all sorts of shit, found Arch Enemy, Carcass (Heartwork only) and other DM bands, but what I really did was go down the underground rabbit hole of Thrash and Progressive Metal. Bands like Devastation, Sadus, etc. Adagio and Communic. Everything sort of snowballed from there. I think my first true Black Metal connection was the band Singularity from Arizona. I liked ToxicxEternity's RU-vid covers and found out he actually had a band. They're Progressive Symphonic Black/Death Metal and their debut is insane. I highly recommend it. Just recently took the deep dive into OSDM and modern Death Metal, I love it all. Now I'm really into Goregrind, Carcass, Cattle Decap, Pig Destroyer, Terrorizer, shit like that. At this point I take in a bit of everything and anything rock/metal related and my taste spans shitloads of bands. It never stops. I listened to some 2,500 hours of music last year and I enjoy every moment.

Really enjoyed it Farvann

Literally lol’d when you mentioned Hybrid Theory. It really was such a gateway album for so many people I’ve talked to

I grew up with rock music but got into metal through black metal, I had a reverse journey

Great video, thanks for sharing your story! It’s similar to mine, I’m about the same age. However, with 14 years old some class mates and me were looking for any kind of underground Metal. We found Endstille, Darkthrone, Dark Funeral and Dark Fortress, so I quickly ended up at my very first concert which was a gig of Naglfar, Endstille and Dark Funeral with the age of 15. My ears were ringing for 4 days after that. I’m listening to Black Metal since then.

well I am born in 2002, got into metal around 2014 when I was 12. It started with ac/dc, metallica, still remeber being stunned by that music. After a long time listeing to those two bands, I straight went in to amon amarth, guardians of asguard. Than I went to Folk metal and Black metal. Only after that I discovered thrash metal and other 'softer genres' and now I am mainly a traditional heavy metal head. But I still like to listen the other metalgenres, but less death and black metal than when I was 15 (19 now)

I was born in 1991. When I was a kid my uncle used to listen to some classic rock bands, along with Metallica, Nirvana and Pantera and things like The Offspring and Green Day, and that sound kinda got me, later in the 2000s I got in touch with Hybrid Theory too and Linkin Park was a turning point for me, even growing up to classic rock in my family. Then some friends introduced me to System of a Down, Slipknot, Korn and Rammstein. By the time I was 14-15 I went back to Metallica and Pantera, Black Sabbath and Ozzy, Scorpions too, then to Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Saxon and other NWOBHM stuff, then some melodic progressive/power/speed metal, then folk/viking/celtic metal along with melodic death/death metal, and finally got into black metal. I'd say is a common journey to a 30 year old metalhead, know a lot of people that traveled almost the same path. The interesting is that I often walk the opposite way and discover awesome bands that I lost in the journey, it's endless if you're into knowing new stuff.

Great video.! I'm of a younger generation.! My first vinyl record 1975 Come Taste The Band, Deep Purple. Introduce me to metal. Then "Pay-Tv" in Australia, 1998 lead me to Immortal, Grim & Frost Bitten Kingdoms. Thank you for a great video.

I feel like you were 2 albums ahead of me in your nu metal journey. I'm still really into Mudvayne to this day!

I came here because I wanted to better understand why people like heavy metal. I never have, I'm more of a hard rock person, but through watching this video I now realize your journey is very similar to mine. You discovered something that you really loved and stuck with it. I guess that's how everyone feels about their favorite kind of music, it's just hard for others to understand.

"when you get into korn, it's only a matter of time before you get into slipknot." lmao yeah that's pretty accurate.

I'm like three years older than you, the genree clicked with me when I was like 13-15 after my first major heartbreak, Darkthrone's Panzerfaust hit me like a brick then. Also a bit later when I went to a mountain resort I spend a fantastic time with great people (other kids) after couple of years, and when I roamed those familiar spots in heavy snow in full moon night listening to Freezing Moon after I broke out of the hotel was something else. The place and context was perfect.I'm not sure how long I was into this, but in 2004 I released (to friends) my own (kinda) black metal album as a tribute to the genre, so for a long time. I moved all through music spectrum, as now im my 30s I don't give a fuck if something is cool, true, lame, popular cringe or whatever, but when it comes to black metal 90% of I still listen to is the classic first/second wave stuff, I don't like 'modern' aproach that much, like say Marduk.

Club-Mate!!! Growing up my dad listened to AC/DC Iron maiden n stuff (oh and Frank Zappa) and as a six/seven year old I got into Rage against the machine and later Clawfinger and Die Krupps. When I was around eleven I discovered Morbid visions by Sepultura. After turning fourteen my family moved and I made a new friend (who is still my best friend to this day, Andre from Raffnix) and he introduced me to Cradle of filth. That sent me down the black metal rabbit hole, Dimmu Borgir, Immortal, Dark throne, Marduk, Gehenna, Belphegor, and by the time I went to Dynamo open air 99 (about a month before my 15th b-day) I was a raging black metalhead. Around 2003 I got into hardcore and by the end of 2004 I was into punk, and that one stuck 😅 Well and since about three years now I've really started expanding my horizon and now I also listen to the kind of stuff that I used to hate, like some charts stuff and a shitload of Gabber hardcore. Some of my old buddys are still active in the bm scene like Waldtyr, Phenex and Skirge

Burzum was what made me fall in love with metal in the first place, weirdly. I was sitting in a cold room, age 13 or 14, recently introduced to metal but it didn't really click for me. Then, I heard "Dunkelheit", and it felt great. It was beautiful. It took me a while to enjoy stuff like death metal, but around that time I got into thrash and doom metal.

I must have been about 9 or 10 when we went to McDonald's with my dad and they were offering free CDs with every menu sold, with the options of ROCK, POP and LOVE. So obviously he got the POP version, in the hopes of there being some ABBA songs on it, whereas I didn't know what I wanted, but LOVE sounded a bit too cheesy, so I thought "What the heck, let's just go with ROCK.". When I put the CD in that evening in my room, the first thing I heard was that iconic intro to Alice Cooper's "Poison" and I got instant goosebumps. It was like nothing I had ever heard before. Raw power, but pleasing to the ear too. So that started it all for me. Then, at about 13, many fellow classmates were already listening to Iron Maiden, Iced Earth, W.A.S.P. and Motörhead, but somehow that just wasn't my stuff back then, as I was already inundated with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit (yes, I know, sorry). So for a while, although I wanted to like real metal, I just couldn't bring myself to do so. Until the age of 16, when a certain symphonic metal band from Finland released a melodic masterpiece called "Nemo" and for reasons I couldn't explain, I ended up listening to that song every chance I got, sometimes even for two hours straight. Through this and with the dawn of high-speed internet at home shortly after, I started discovering similar bands and then of course, even heavier stuff. And though Black Metal isn't necessarily my go-to genre, I can often appreciate it on a long drive or in the hotel (but never at home, as my girlfriend would disembowel me with a wooden cooking spoon at the mere sound of it). But it's safe to say that I've been to Wacken and felt like home. In fact, I mean to take our daughter there one day too. My girlfriend insists that this doesn't happen before she's 14, but maybe I can convince her to do it when she's 11. We shall see. Got some time to teach her some good music until then. ;)

Korn-Issues: bought in 2000 (I’m 12 by that time) as a birthday gift for my dad. Changed my life forever and turned me into a “metalhead”

I also remeber the Metal Edge and Metal Maniacs magazines. That, in combination with underground local shows got me into it. Good old days before the internet.

As I´m more or less same age, my journey was quite simillar. Apart from that, I´m not that much into black metal, but generally into old school metal (especially thrash), also like some progressive/technical/atmosferic stuff. And sometimes oldies pop/rock. Anyway I also started with recording tapes from my friends, also we were renting CD´s from some CD owners´ club for a small fee and then some of us burned it at home (converted more albums into mp3) and distributed it to the others. Yes i remeber arround 2004-2006 I started downloading from the internet, first was platform DC++ (you might also remeber it). After that came the blogs yep. I remember especially one-Polish Elite Board where I got really deep into underground thrash metal records...and also rare live shows of these bands, before it was available on youtube. Still being thankful for that blogspot. Today is everything super easy with youtube. On the other hand thank to that we can get to so much great music, we might not get to listen to otherwise.

When I was 13-14 years old I was really into urban legends and Creepypasta and that's how I found out about Nattramn and his band Silencer. Sterile Nails and Thunderbowels was the first black metal song I've ever listened to and, while I considered the vocals “weird” and extreme, something about the music immediately clicked. It touched me somewhere, as you said. I considered that momento like my initiation to black metal. Anyway, that was a very interesting and entertaining video!

A bit late to the party, but we had a similar path. Been playing BM for almost 18 years now, rock on, dude.

Funny to watch you video. I felt in BM around Christmas 1995, 15 years old, when i discovered Panzerfaust of Darkthorne in a local record shop. A lot of years before the internet, my friend. 😁

The first time I heard metal was a foreign band, called Hermetica, my father is Argentine and he listened to that all the time, when I got into metal it was with the song Revelations by Iron Maiden, I remember that night I listened to the first 5 albums by Iron Maiden, my ears only heard a high pitched sound hahaha, then I took a huge turn and started listening to Death, which is still my favorite non-Black Metal band today, and a few months after that I started listening to Black Metal When I was 11 years old, I heard a song by Immortal, I think it was from the album Battles In The North, my head completely exploded, to this day I still listen to Black Metal, but not much of the classic, I listen to DSBM all the time, sometimes it's boring but it's never too late to discover new musical experiences, Durbatuluk is one of my favorite bands, I discovered it before watching a video of yours hahaha, I love you friend, greetings!

A great confess. :) I like this jorney. A lil bit like mine))) Thank you a lot, Farvann! Rock on! Horns up! \m/

I got into music much later, at 15. I was playing a video game Burnout Paradise and I liked the intro song - Paradise City by Guns N Roses. So, I watched some Guns N Roses videos on youtube. Wchich then recommended me the new Judas Priest album that came out - Firepower. And because I always like to dig deep, I dug to the first album by Judas Priest, Rock Rolla from 1974 and then the next album and then 2 months later I realized I just listened to Judas Priest’s entire discography and loved every second of it. So I thought that I should probably check out other metal bands. So, naturally I got into the big 4, wchich then led me into thrash metal rabbit hole. Then I thought, maybe I should listen to other than just 2 metal subgenres, so I looked up each subgenre one by one. Naturally, I skipped over genres like death or black or grindcore, because it was still too heavy. But I think I found something in every one of them over time. Now I enjoy even the most obnoxiously heavy bands, such as Enbilulugugugal, Methwitch, Whourkr, Phantomsmasher, Undying Inc. … I also loved Fallout games, wchich have old music for soundtrack, very old music, so that was actually the first music I grew up with. So then I had no problem getting into stuff like Jimi Hendrix, The Stray Cats, rockabilly, old jazz rock, krautrock, more and more obscure “heavy psych”. For long time, I sort of ignored nu metal, but now, trough Korn, I got really into that.

I started with classic rock when i was 12, pretty standard stuff. Would look at music videos and found a Playlist on RU-vid full of metal one night. Saw the video for progenies of the great apocalypse by dimmu borgir and it blew my little head clean off my shoulders. Then I found out about belphegor and behemoth, lol I thought I was so evil and badass as a kid listening to that. I used to try to show off my death growls to my freinds back then at school. They had no clue about anything I was saying but they were good freinds, very supportive lol.

My older step sister got me into metal in general she was right into tape trading, sometimes we’d sit in her room hang out & listen to all these metal mix tapes. One tape in particular always caught my eye, it had a plain black slip & a white inverted pentagram & it just said “Brutal Metal” So I popped it in & it was early Norwegian black metal Mayhem, Darkthrone, Emperor & there was one Burzum song on there…as soon as I heard the guitars I was sold. Then she moved out & I couldn’t find any of the albums at the time. Along came Cannibal Corpse, Death, Pantera & Black Sabbath. Then I had stroke of evil luck in grade 7 & found a CD copy of Darkthrone Panzerfaust at the local flea market, still one of my favourite albums. Anyways good story man. 🍻Cheers🍻 🤘🏻All Hail Black Metal🤘🏻

11:16 dark, cold, loud... that is definition of black metal

I've only been listening to black metal for about six months, I started with Behemoth, Carpathian Forest... and more and more and I'm exploring it and loving it! Thanks for the interesting video.

I love everything. If there's a genre, guaranteed there's an artist or more I like in it. Always loved hip-hop, blues, jazz, soul, etc. Growing up in Southern Chicago, then Atlanta. Metal caught me around 5 or 4 yrs old. Venom, Priest, AC/DC, Maiden, Metcyful Fate, Brats... Anyhow, I fell off for a minute. Fell back into Metal in the early 90s. And Death and especially Black Metal took me on a journey. Bathory, Mayhem, Darkthrone, Gehenna, Immortal, Emperor and yes, Burzum are my entryway into the "dark arts". I've never looked back!

First metal band i ever listened to was sabaton, powerwolf, or alestorm. Discovered all of them in like a week so dont remeber which one was actually the first

Not only was it very entertaining but also relatable. I can totally identify with you abstracting yourself from your surroundings in a crowded train listening to extreme metal. I live in Buenos Aires, and I also had to take a bus, a very crowded one, and listening to metal was an essential excercise in order not to go insane.

I discovered black metal I think about 10 years ago, and instantly fell in love. My friend told me about Spotify, and I just kept looking up bands I liked (Slipknot, Korn, Breaking Benjamin, etc) and searching "related artists" until I discovered Endstille. I thought to myself "this is as heavy as it gets!" before immediately finding Defeated Sanity and just diving head first into extreme metal.

Hei, i like it how you explain this "other feeling" of hearing to music, or adapt to music back in the days, when we discovered music in a deeper way (i´m about as old like you). When i talk with my parents about music they heard in the 1970s, they even have another feeling to that memorys as ours now about the 90s. (Mostly everytime i´m over there i put on the Paranoid Album they have from 1970 first press :D). Internet was so a mega-huge change of our generation ! Maybe this is the reason, most the music lovers (i know) who are our generation switch back to Vinyl and/or Cassette.....maybe it is like to be more aware of the music itself, not how much GB or TB music-files is on your SSD and all of the music is easily replaceable. And it was fun to watch and listen to, recap your way into Black Metal ! Was it hard to recreate the memories how exactly it was ? I struggle with recreate my way into Black Metal itself. The first Metal or "Metal"(^^) thing i heard was Helloween on cassette when i was about 12. Since then the interest was awaked to any kind of Metal. This "magical" Black Metal-moment you explained you had in that train seems familiar to me, but it got me late (but serious) around 2010. Grammatikfehler bitte missachten :D Wir sehen uns beim Whuäcken (oder hoffentlich auch einem anderen Festival) !

Im 18 and I'm into metal for almost 2 years. Don't know how but I started with SOAD, then deep into darkthrone and burzum. Now I listen to almost any type of metal and I enjoy more and more the classic metal if I could name it this way (Judas Priest, Dio, Sabbath and Angelwitch).

I'll add my story too, it's a long one. I'm pretty young so my journey began with Tony Hawk's Underground. I loved the soundtrack (And still do!) and I really enjoyed the rock tracks more than the hip hop tracks for whatever reason. I just enjoyed the more energetic sound, the guitars blasting, the vocals. We didn't have a lot of money growing up so I would honestly play "God of Thunder" by Kiss on repeat for hours while playing or even just putting the controller down and doing something else. That was when the seeds were planted, I became a huge WWE fan and since 2006 was in the middle of the butt rock era, little old me loved it. It was hard, it was relentless, it felt real to my young ears. My parents were making good money now so I was finally given an iPod Nano, the first gen. Black with 1GB, I cherished that little thing. I downloaded all the music from THUG 1 and the songs from WWE and just enjoyed rock. Every time there was a song I liked I would download it on the spot. A few months later my friend from school saw my collection of "real music" on my iPod and introduced me to Disturbed. He played "Inside the Fire" and we were talking about how hard it was, how they were so good and stuff like that. That was when I knew I loved metal and will eventually go down the rabbit hole. I eventually downloaded their discography and ventured more towards that nu metal and alternative metal scene. Bands like Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, Linkin Park, basically all of those bands became my sound. That was me up until 10th grade. Somehow I found a video with Amon Amarth playing over the scene of SpongeBob playing the guitar from the first movie. Zero clue how I found it too. It was "With Oden on Our Side" and I LOVED it. It was much heavier and faster than what I was playing at the time, I became obsessed with Amon Amarth and eventually the more extreme genres like thrash, death and eventually black. For black metal, Behemoth was my gateway band. I found another stupid video on here with "Ov Fire and the Void" playing and I enjoyed the blackened death metal sound. Went onto Wikipedia and saw it was a fusion between black and death metal. Clicked on the black metal link to find out more and the rest of history. I played "De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas" and I knew I was a fan of black metal. It's my absolute favorite genre and I hope my love for it never goes away. I love the underground black metal scene too, right now I'm playing "Submission and Slavery" by Lamp of Murmuur as I am typing this. Who knew that generic, awful butt rock will bring me to black metal? Honestly I can't hate those bands either, without them I wouldn't be here.

I have dwelled in and out of both black and death metal because of the magazine Metal Hammer (miss that magazine here in Canada). My first exposure to metal was with Dragula by Rob Zombie and Spacelord by Monster Magnet. Eventually I met this dude name Mike who was a year older than me (I was twelve in 1998) and lived a couple of houses over from me. He and dad as well as brother introduced me to bands such as Iron Maiden, Anvil, Slipknot, Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, etc. I still listen to many different genre's of metal to this day. Also dude, your channel is freaking awesome! Keep up the good work.

The good old days chilling with my CD player and my giant case of cds in my back pack

Awesome video! Metal to me is something very similar, where the more modern "gateway" metal dragged my pre-teen soul through adult-hood, to the endless curiosity for life-changing music. I will never forget the gradual excitement I earned for taking risks and diving deep into the classics of heavy metal, to death metal, then to thrash, then to black metal, only to appreciate the last discovery so much more as it rung true in every pore. It then becomes a sophisticated obsession: this riff, to that group... to fill the day with surreal connection to what humanly relatable and expressive edge that changed my life for the better. Metal forever.

"don't see any people wich is great" i like this guy

I was I Mississippi when Korn came out in 94 and my friend had the tape. It was magical times in his thunderchicken. Even when we had a wreck

Remember the first time I listened to metal as clear as day. I was in like ten or eleven when I listened to bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Linkin Park, Nirvana, etc. I clicked on a mix on RU-vid called Rock and Metal mix. The first song that came up was Master of Puppets by Metallica in Manchester, England 2019. I thought it was so cool and I listened to the song again. I told my dad and he said that I should listen to Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman. Now I’m a die hard metalhead and Metallica fan. Metallica got me into metal and they’re my favorite band. I like other metal bands like Disturbed, Godsmack, Iron Maiden, System of a Down, Black Sabbath, Seether, etc.

12 years ago started with Iron Maiden Fear of the Dark and to this day they are still my fav band. Finally i'll see them this year live.

It took me years to get into black metal, it is by far one of my most listened to and favorite genres. Strangely, unlike most, I think the band that did it for me was Xasthur. It took me longer to get into 1st and 2nd wave black metal than any of the newer sub-genres (like DSBM). At the time, I knew Venom, I knew Mayhem and Burzum, and I listened to some of their songs but I wouldn't say I enjoyed it at the time. What really got me into it was the history of the genre, but what really made it click was Noisey's amazing 3-part documentary "Black Metal's Unexplored Fringes - One Man Metal". If you haven't watched it, please do, it's one of the very few black metal documentaries and one of the even fewer DSBM focused ones.

Personally, I got to black metal 2 years before, when I was 16. It was that May that everything changed for me. Back then, I used to listen to heavy and thrash metal a lot, but I was getting bored of these genres and I wanted to listen to somethin new in metal. That moment, I found out that I haven't listened to one genre and that was black metal. Even though I listen to metal since 13, I had never listened to black metal simply because of its thematology and the style of the music. So, I quickly searched in youtube about Bathory and decided to give a listen to the song "Blood Fire Death". I was amazed by its unique power and majesticness and Quorthon's voice was something I had never heard before. After that, I got stuck in black metal (and remain like this 'til nowadays) and I started finding new bands. First was Mayhem, then Burzum, after that Satyricon, next was Emperor and Darkthrone and Immortal came after. Worthless to say that since then I have found a lot of interesting bands, such as Rotting Christ, Dark Fortress, Satanic Warmaster, Nargaroth, Dimmu Borgir (the old), Moonblood, Behemoth, Summoning, Nokturnal Mortum, Horna etc... Hail Black fucking Metal, war against trends!! 👿🖤🤘🤘

Interesting, and I had a somewhat similar journey, being born in 1988. I also started with Linkin Park, Slipknot, Mudvayne, etc.. a lot of Iowa, but The End of All Things to Come was a big favorite for me.. some friends shared those tastes, but I kind of stumbled upon black metal from Napster or Limewire.. I don’t remember how I found it, but the first black metal band I head was Dissection, and I fell in love, I remember listening to the live albums at the Barnes and Noble online music catalog because I couldn’t find it online. I don’t think I discovered other black metal bands for a little while after that.

I got into Black Metal when I was 17, that's 27 years ago now. Shit I'm old :) Started out in grunge, getting over to Guns 'n Roses, Iron Maiden, some Metallica, Judas Priest etc. My first metal concert was Slayer. I was 16 then. From Slayer it was a small step to Black Metal. And for almost 30 years now this genre never gets boring, I will always be listening to Black Metal.

I got into death metal first playing the drums then black metal took my soul when i was about 17 my favorite genre there is nothing like black metal

Good to know how your metal journey began, love korn as well

This is my 40th year listening to metal. I started with Judas Priest when I was 11, and was into Venom, Mercyful Fate, Voivod, Celtic Frost, Sodom, Slayer by the time I was 15. I hope to date someday

Dang I never would’ve expected everything to start with Linkin Park. Pretty cool.

thanj you for being here and sharing your expressions with transilvanian hunger. I'm in one of the bad times rn. And your way to acting out your mind business is hit me much. I'm not gonna talk about the reason you make these videos it may be for yourself overall but I just want to say thank you.

If You think about is video interesting or not,it always is,just do it,You do amazing videos,Grüße aus Polen