I’ve been into heavy metal my whole life. Not as a phase. Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, AC/DC were my entry points as a kid, and they’re still in rotation now that I’m in my 50s. Something about it doesn’t wear off.
I had a long conversation with Jeremy Wallach recently on my podcast. Jeremy is a friend — and an ethnomusicologist who has spent years studying metal scenes around the world, including Indonesia. He comes at this from both sides: the research and the fandom.
Metal as a social outlet
Jeremy’s work pushes back on the idea that metal is just noise for angry teenagers. In our conversation he said: “Heavy metal often reflects societal issues and provides an outlet for expressing frustrations and aspirations.” That matches what I’ve seen. The genre tends to attract people who don’t feel addressed by whatever the mainstream is doing.
It’s most visible in places under real political pressure. In Iran, bands record and distribute covertly, working around censorship. In Indonesia — where I grew up — metal has been a space for addressing corruption and social conditions that other genres approach more carefully, if at all. I remember this being true before I could fully articulate why. The music was saying things that weren’t being said elsewhere.
A genuinely global scene
What still gets me, after all these years, is how international metal actually is. Not just that people everywhere listen to it — that they’ve built their own versions of it, shaped by where they’re from.
Jeremy has studied this specifically in Asia. He said: “Asia’s heavy metal scenes are fascinating because they blend local cultural elements with the global metal sound, creating something entirely unique.” Indonesia is a real example of this. The influence doesn’t flow cleanly outward from the West — it goes in multiple directions and comes back changed in ways you don’t always expect.
Wacken Open Air and Hellfest pull fans from dozens of countries every year. I’ve been to enough shows in enough places to notice that metal crowds have an immediate orientation to each other that’s hard to explain and easy to feel. You walk in not knowing anyone and you still know roughly where you stand.
Where the genre stands
Bandcamp, Spotify, YouTube — these changed the access question in a real way, especially for bands outside the major markets. A metal act from Bandung or Jakarta can reach listeners in Germany without a label deal now. That didn’t used to be possible.
The subgenre situation is worth watching. Metal has always fragmented and recombined. Djent or symphonic metal would have been unrecognizable to someone at a Black Sabbath show in 1972, but the lineage is traceable if you follow it. The genre keeps expanding its own definition without losing whatever it is that makes it metal.
Jeremy put the community thing directly: “The community aspect of heavy metal is incredibly strong; it provides a sense of belonging and identity for its fans.” Having been in it since I was a teenager, I don’t think that’s an overstatement. The ones who get into metal tend to stay in it. I know I have.
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