Session 2A: Metal and Religion

Matt Donahue: Hellraiser: Lemmy’s Religious Views Through the Prism of Theomusicology This paper will examine Motorhead’s Lemmy and his views of religion expressed in interviews and lyrics through the prism of theomusicology. Ian “Lemmy” Kilmeister the founder of the heavy metal group Motorhead, is well known for his anti-establishment views on religion and these views were perhaps shaped by his experiences as a young boy. Lemmy, the son of a preacher, whose father left him and his mother at a young age, has railed against religion throughout his career in Motorhead with such songs as Poison, Don’t Need Religion, God Was Never On Your Side and Orgasmatron to name a few. With religion coming under attack consistently throughout his music career, Motorhead’s Lemmy has led the way in confronting religion through his song lyrics. Theomusicology, a discipline founded by Dr. Jon Michael Spencer, attempts to intersect music and religion and highlight how music has a direct connection to the spiritual. Spencer writes “Theomusicology is musicology as a theologically informed discipline….Theomusicology researches into cultural and intercultural reflections on the ethical, the religious, and the mythological, involves the study of music created, performed, and listened to in the domain or communities of the sacred (the religious), the secular (the theistic unreligious), and the profane (the atheistic irreligious).” This paper will examine how Lemmy’s atheistic views on religion play out through the prism of theomusicology and is there room for an atheomusicology/atheist musicology in the anti-religious lyrics and attitudes of Motorhead’s Lemmy. Benjamin Hodge Olson: Within the Perpetual Pentagram: Christianity, Anti-Christianity, and the Politics of Religious Compromise in the Hawaii Metal Scene Metal is completely preoccupied with religion and has been since its inception. Far more so than any other subculture associated with a genre of popular music, metal subculture spends a tremendous amount of its creative energy ruminating over themes concerning the supernatural, the metaphysical, the occult and the sacred. In California or New Jersey, Christian metal bands are able to have their own shows, and indeed their own scenes. Conversely, the majority of metal in California or New Jersey, which is decidedly not Christian, are free to be as blasphemous or even Satanic as they like without having to directly confront hostile Christian fans. This is not the case in Hawai‘i; the population of metal fans is small enough that Christian and non-Christian (or anti-Christian) bands are forced to not only coexist, but provide a certain degree of mutual support. In Hawai‘i, the two segments of the metal world that often shun one another, the Christian minority and the anti-Christian majority, must, by necessity, find a way to coexist. Many of my Christian informants feel a degree of conflict between their religion and their metal identity, and within this conflict resides an important part of their subcultural pleasure. Metalheads who do not have any particular affinity or hostility towards Christianity often take pleasure in the chaotic, transgressive, provocative capabilities of Satanic and occult aesthetics, as well as that of more ambiguous supernatural creatures like vampires and zombies. Those of my informants who are hostile to Christianity and find empowerment in the figure of Satan take great pleasure in their ability to strike fear into the hearts of conservative Christians and present themselves as rebels and antagonists. Because these three general categories of metalheads must coexist within a single, closely-knit, isolated scene, incidents of chaos and confusion, like the one described at the beginning of this chapter, often occur