or; why exactly is that so surprising?
I don’t know why people don’t think of me as metal.
But they really don’t. There are so many times that people meet me, even get to know me a little bit, and still think that I’m a “classical music all the time” kind of kid.
I still remember working at a local taco joint five or six years ago, and one day it was my turn to pick the radio station as we opened up the store in the morning. I turned the radio to the closest thing I could get to metal in Utah. The manager’s jaw dropped. He looked at me and said, “You actually like this kind of music?”
Back then, I wasn’t even that metal. But I replied, “Yeah, I do.”
He answered back, “Well, you always seemed like a . . . I dunno . . . Classical 89 kinda guy to me.”
That’s when it struck me for the first time. For one reason or another, people seem to think that I’m a boring, classical-only person. Now don’t get me wrong; I love my classical music and probably know more than most do concerning music in general – it helps when you’re a classically-trained pianist who had a crazy college professor for your teacher for the last four years of your lessons.
But simply because I love classical music doesn’t mean I can’t headbang with the best of them. They’re not, as most assume, mutually exclusive concepts.
Most people say that when you get home from being a missionary for my church, you mellow, and stop listening to “that blasted hard rock crap”. I’ve been the exact opposite – I listen to harder stuff these days than I ever listened to pre-missionary. (And it’s all your fault, BlueDev.)
But it’s still funny sometimes. Yesterday at work, I was talking to the new girl. She’s only been in our branch for three days now. We were talking about stuff; what we’re going into in school, what we like to read, etc. So I was gushing about my favorite author, Miguel de Unamuno, and I was simply oozing “lit-nerd”.
Then (the lobby now being closed) I cranked up my computer and turned on “In the Absence of Truth” by Isis, my current favorite listen and probably the single most amazing album to come out in 2006.
Alisa looked over at me in shock. Now, Isis rocks, but it is nothing like some of the really brutal metal I listen to. But her eyes got all wide, and she said to me, “You listen to music like this? I figured you for a top 40’s guy.”
All I could do was smile. “No way, man. I’m metal all the way.”
Now if I could just figure out how to portray my metal-ness without wearing the nasty metal clothes and having the nasty metal hair.