life, heavy metal is "something no one can take away from you,"
he said. "You can take away a lot of things from people but you
can't really take away music, 'cause that's your own. Ain't nobody
ever gonna come into my house and take my tapes."

The music clearly had an ideological significance for him. That
was why he had volunteered to be in the study, to "defend our
music, talk to people, let them see that it's not what they think."
To him, the dark music and pessimistic lyrics of heavy metal songs
reflect the harsh reality of life.

I have a hard time with all these people that put down [heavy metal
bands] and say they're satanic and they worship the devil and all this.
If you listen to the words in their songs, it's all reality. Dying is real-
ity, nuclear war is reality, going out and killing somebody is reality,
living on the streets is reality, and they talk about reality problems.

But the sheer intensity of the music, and the pleasure and excite-
ment of that intensity, were also part of the attraction for him.
"The music is so powerful, it's so strong, it's real energizing," he
said. "You put the music on and it gets you in a better mood and
gets you moving. . . . It's real intense, real intense." Listening to it
with friends added to the excitement and intensity of it for him.
He enjoyed getting together to slamdance with them -- jostling,
colliding, and slamming into each other, arms flailing, legs pump-
ing, and bodies convulsing or careening while the heavy metal
music plays.

It's fun to just crawl into one room with nothing in it -- nothing but a
little stereo -- and throw on some wild music. Get about fifteen people
in a small room and start slamdancing, basically beating the hell out of
each other. But we can hit each other and knock each other on the
ground and everything and we just turn around and look at each other
and say, "What's up man? Help me up." No big deal. It's just because
it's all in fun.

Jack spoke glowingly of the experience of attending heavy metal
concerts and the exhilarating sense of being united there with fel-
low metalheads. "It's great to go with a bunch of friends and just
get wild," he said. "Whenever you get 10,000 headbangers in a
room you don't want to piss us off; you don't want to get in our

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