This continues my Metal Tree series on early roots of Heavy Metal and likely the first acts that could be considered as Heavy Metal in the United States, but before the term had started being used. These titles would often be called things like Acid Rock, Hard Rock, etc but their sound is clearly the edge of where Rock and Heavy Metal border each other. It is important to note that music of this type was also happening in the UK and that will be covered in another Metal Tree post. The first post in the Metal Tree series is here.

Banger Films has the series Metal Evolution by Sam Dunn which I will continue to reference. It is a big part of the inspiration for this series. It influences a lot of what I have to say, but I do have my own take, and I do mention people that they do not.

The Metal Evolution episode that covers Early US metal is available on Youtube for free.

Let Us Begin

This section covers that U.S. border between Rock and Roll and Heavy Metal. There are some acts that will be listed here that influenced either the attitude, the volume, or some other aspect while perhaps not quite being Metal themselves. This describes Dick Dale. He was a progenitor for what is known as Surf Rock. Some of the brutal fast picking that some metal styles use (more in later styles) could have originated here. He was also instrumental in amplifiers getting larger and loud. Loudness is a trademark of Heavy Metal as well. I did not mention that in my previous posts but sheer volume and loudness are indeed another aspect that is common in Heavy Metal. That particular aspect likely began from bands like The Who and from Dick Dale.

Dick Dale

Band Started: 1962
Known for: Surf Rock, Fast picking style, and increasing the loudness of amplifiers

Iron Butterfly

Band Started: 1966
Known for: Ina Gada Da Vida, and massive drum solos

The Amboy Dukes

Band Started: 1967
Known for: Ted Nugent got his start here.
As with most metal in this era it is heavily blues and pentatonic riff based. Ted Nugent is no exception to that.

Blue Cheer

Band Started: 1967
Known for: Volume... tuning down to D and thunderous music. They actually sound closer to metal than a lot of the earlier acts. They definitely put feedback to a lot of use as well.

Vanilla Fudge

Band Started: 1967
Known for:"Set me free why don't you babe?"
This sound is also very Progressive Rock flavored. The distortion, volume, and drums are very much early metal like.

Steppenwolf

Band Started: 1968
Known for: the term Heavy Metal is sometimes credited to them, as the phrase "Heavy metal thunder" appears in the lyrics of Born to be Wild.

The MC5

Band Started: 1969
Known for: Amazing guitars, arrangements. They were spoken of all over the place in the U.S. and outside. They have some Jazz/Progressive type influences obvious in their music. They may be where some of the ideas about how Heavy Metal guitarists should act also came from. The definitely brought a lot of the ATTITUDE that would be in heavy metal for a long time, and even to this day.

The Stooges

Band Started: 1969
Known for: Attitude in spades(Iggy Pop). They also have a definite punk rock vibe to them. This song uses distortion a bit more liberally than most bands had.

Alice Cooper

Band Started: 1969
Known For: Alice Cooper's "Shock Rock" style. He was not the first to do this and we will explore this more in another post.

Chicago

Band Started: 1969
Known for: They are known more as a Jazz/Progressive band. However the song 25 or 6 to 4 in 1970 has some decidedly Metal vibes to it. This is not totally surprising from a Progressive band as a hallmark of being Progressive is experimentation and mixing styles. This is a pretty impressive song, though Chicago is actually a very skilled band. This is one of my additions to the Metal Tree.

Mountain

Band Started: 1970
Known for: "Mississippi Queen!"

ZZ Top

Band Started: 1970
Known for: Very long beards, and heavily riff blues hard rock. Sometimes known as the Southern Rock sound. Phenomenal blues/pentatonic based guitar solos.
Personal Take: My father and uncle were in a band together than opened for these guys before when ZZ Top was still known by the band name American Blues in Texas.

Blue Oyster Cult

Band Started: 1971
Known for:"Don't Fear The Reaper"

Foghat

Band Started:1972
Known for: "Slowride" one hit wonder?
Personal: I actually graduated from High School and went to my first college in Gunnison, Colorado which is where they got their start. This was added by me to the Metal Tree as an edit.

Styx

Band Started: 1972
Known for: Many songs. They have quite a long career and a lot of studio albums and still tour to this day. This was added to the Metal Tree by me due to songs like the following one that clearly seem Metal.

Aerosmith

Band Started: 1973
Known For: Many songs. "Dream On" has a decidedly Metal feel to it. They also played the bad guy band in the musical Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that had some metal like moments. They were known as FVB in that movie which stood for Future Villain Band. They are doing "Come Together" by the Beatles there. Later on they would frequently appear on Headbanger's Ball on MTV.

Montrose

Band Started: 1973
Known For: Mostly the bands they came from and the bands they would go on to form afterwards. They had the heavy driving rhythm and style that is very metal. They also as with most bands of this time focused on the blues/pentatonic style guitar solos. Sammy Hagar who later would become the vocalist for Van Halen after doing a stint as a self titled act Sammy Hagar.

Bachman Turner Overdrive

Band Started: 1973
Known For: Not being metal. They do however, have a few songs that seem to be in the vein of what in the future would be metal. They can sometimes seem more metal than some of the other accepted bands above. This is one of my additions to the Metal Tree.

Kiss

Band Started: 1974
Known for: Being super prolific about releasing albums. Make Up (aka Shock Rock). Kiss Army, and going on to be a VERY successful band.
Personal: I was six years old when I decided I really liked Kiss. For a few years they would be my favorite band.

38 Special

Band Started: 1974
Known for: Not being Metal. They have some songs that have a sound that reminds me of metal to come. Bands like Def Leppard seem to have adopted some of these sounds. This is one of my weird additions to the Metal Tree.

Ted Nugent

Band Started: 1975
Known for: Ted Nugent, wild attitude, crazy guitar licks, and big huge front man attitude. Also sexually explicit lyrics. He got his start in The Amboy Dukes which was listed earlier in this post. Stranglehold which is this song is absolutely brilliant for the time to. Masterful, and awesome piece of music.
Personal: The first album of his I heard a lot of was "Cat Scratch Fever" which my uncle left at my house. I listened to this album a lot one summer. I was singing it as a youngling.

Y & T

Band Started: 1976
Known For: "Summertime Girls" - this reminds me of some Van Halen style thing and is an early version of a lot of the sound later Glam Metal and other bands might pursue. The singing style on "Mean Streak" the second song here reminds me of the style in that Steel Dragon uses in the movie Rockstar Mark Wahlberg, Zak Wylde, and others.

Heart

Band Started: 1976
Known for: "Barracuda" and female vocals. This was added to the Metal Tree by me and I added it as an edit after I published it (within an hour).
Personal: At our little summer Video Game arcade that opened up in my home town, this was the closest to the metal sound my friends and I could find on the Arcade's Jukebox so we ended up playing this song quite a bit.

Boston

Band Started: 1976
Known for: Unique and amazing sounds. Guitarist was an Engineer from M.I.T. and is known for making a lot of the sound effects used on the guitar. This is where I most obviously hear sounds like the Phaser and the Flanger which were often used in Metal. This is one of my additions to the Metal Tree. I'm not quite sure why they were left out in the first place.

Foreigner

Band Started: 1977
Known For: "Hot Blooded" and harmonies. This is a band I added to the Metal Tree as I believe they fit with offering some of that sound that would go on to be called Heavy Metal.

Van Halen

Band Started: 1978
Known for: Catchy popular songs, David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen and his use of the two handed tapping technique. This is one of the early cases where solos are more riff based and not always blues and pentatonic based.

Pat Benatar

Band Started: 1979
Known For: Female Vocalist and a lot of hit songs. I added her to the Metal Tree as other than being a female vocalists which previous entrees were not a lot of her music had that early Metal sound. She also had the attitude.

Joan Jett

Band Started: 1980
Known for: "I Love Rock and Roll" She is an act I added to the Metal Tree like Pat Benatar above for similar reasons.

Closing

You may be looking at some of these and saying "That's not metal!" and you wouldn't be the first to say that. It usually stems from the fact with some people the label Heavy Metal has a mental stigma. It is more about bias than the fact it is not metal. I remember a friend of mine performing in a band called Offering 74 (they were all born in 1974) and the female vocalist hating Metal and being very vocal about it and me watching them live and telling my friend in the band. "She hates metal, but that is what you are playing" he would simply nod. Years later she dropped the bias and fell in love with the style, the label, and opened her mind to a lot more opportunities.

There is going to be a border where things were one thing and then metal came out. People that are living near that border with their music are likely going to identify with one side of the border or another. Yet I tend to view it as the spot where the sand of the deserts merges and blends with the grasses of the not desert. The artists in those regions tend to move back and forth across that border.

Once we go past these EARLY stages it becomes more clear, but these early ages what was being called Rock and Roll, Hard Rock, Acid Rock, Southern Rock, etc all sound very much like early Heavy Metal before a label had been given to it. Take the drums, the distorted guitars, the attitude, the volume and you have Heavy Metal. A negative stigma and connotation with the label does not change that.

Steem On!