Hypothesis: metallers can't make industrial, discuss!

[Goat93]

To Goat93: In the BDN topic I mainly reacted to the complete cluelessness about industrial among a good portion of the audience. That line of thought brought me to think about the importance of backgrounds for understanding genres. I have many friends who predominantly listen to metal and most of them have this idea about "music" and "bands" and "composition" as their way of understanding what comes out of the speakers, you know, comments like "what an awesome drummer" or "wow, what a solo". But for someone with a background in industrial/noise/experimental there would be a different expectation and understanding of sound not bound exclusively to that "rockist" approach. I think that must do something to the way people approach the making of music/sound too, like the way they judge whether this sounds "good" or not to their ears, the way they "compose"? I actually appreciate all the bands/artists you mention. I am not anti metal but only like certain types that have very little to do with heavy metal/rock. Nothing alienates me more that a band who puts on a show to entertain their audience. I basically think the rockist mentality is in direct opposition to the spirit of industrial and from that came the admittedly very sharply cut topic idea. And it worked, it provoked some discussion as intended and all your comments and perspectives are appreciated.

Actualy i don't see the Connection between it, since Of the Wand is Neofolk and if someon went to a Gig for this Band, the other Bands are unimportant. Has nothing to do with "should like it" or not. Even in the same Genre its quiet common to attend to the Shows of the Bands, they like and went off the others. Pretty common and normal gesture in all Genres.

To the Question itself, since there were always Connections between the Genres build by the Musicians, its pretty hard to separate them. If you only look for the Chlichees and the Picture from the Outside, its pretty easy to make everything Black White and separate them. If you look into it, its not even possible anymore. Industrial was a Heavy Influence in Extreme Music all the Time.
In the 90tes all Genres broke up to survive and took charge in other Genres to mix everything in the wider Commercial Aspect, for example the Metal/Folk Stuff or the Techno/Indutstrial Stuff pops up. Also the EBM/Metal Hybrids ect ect. There were no "Background" Genre from the Start on, People listened to all kind of Music they like and ignored the Rest. from Slipknot to Burzum was a natually short step. From Morbid Angel to Throbbing Gristle, Impaled Nazarene to NON was also pretty normal. Also from Anal Cunt  to Merzbow.The Idea, Metalheads think Wumpscut is Industrial and are idiots i can relate to, The Idea New "Industria/Noisel" Idiots are pretty low profile Techno Kiddys were also correct for a long time. But its just a small Part of all. Dominik Fernow or Hendrik Nordvargr are good examples for the wider Part of the Scenes and their Mixture.

edit: And for me a very important note.
There were no real definitions about Noise and Power Electronics. You can get a Grey Wolves Tape with Music from the 20-30thies with some Background Noise also total Full Blast and both went under Power Electronics. Or some Guitar Noise to real Guitar playing Structure or just Harsh Noise from the same Artist. Noise was always the Freedom of doing everything and have no Borders at all. Only the Customer build the Borders, like the Metal Fans or Goth Rock Fans or or or....

[post-morten]

A very recent example, I think, of people with a metal background that make great industrial music is Duma. Two guys that broke out of Nairobi’s metal underground to do an extreme hybrid of noise and breakcore, all infused with a tribal jungle vibe. Depending on your references your likely to hear traces of Godflesh, Atari Teenage Riot, your favorite spastic Japanese noiserock act, or even some old-school experimentalism like Bourbonese Qualk. Post-pandemic, they’ve been touring Europe and the US incessantly, so chances are someone on the board will have seen them.

Lionsblood
Omni

Lot’s of cool things coming out on their label, Nyege Nyege Tapes from Uganda, btw. Rappers, metalheads, dj’s, rastas with no respect for the past all throwing in their parts, coalescing into a music of the future.

[Goat93]

I listened to Neuroris lately and if someone counts Hardcore/Doom Mixture to Metal, its also a good example.

[Warfare Noise]

Proper noise and industrial people fucked their own world up fine without the help of metal immigrants.

I always felt that Industrial and Black Metal are sort of lifestyle genres which tourists rarely do well, and that is true even when the call comes from inside the house. Most Death Metal guys who start a BM band make trash, same with most harsh heads when they try their hand at an Industrial side project. Failure rates are through the roof on these genres if you are not "all in", regardless of what door you came through.

[Cementimental]

A very recent example, I think, of people with a metal background that make great industrial music is Duma. .

They are decent but I was beyond mystified to read the music press falling over themselves about AFRICAN GRINDCORE when the stuff is basically just Skat Injector-esque speedcore

[Into_The_Void]

Coming from an extreme metal background and being myself a metalhead and "newer" in the whole extreme electronic/experimental scene, I would say that, probably, what is slowly missing in contemporary extreme music is attitude and - most important - focus, together with a more or less amount of knowledge of what is played. What I see nowadays at shows / social networks/communities etc, is that showing is more important than to feel: once extreme music was for - sic! - extreme people, today everything seems to be turning into a fancy and polite "salon" instead.

Could be that I misunderstood the main topic, but in my opinion, the question is not if metalheads could do industrial (what does it mean???), but rather if nowadays music makers are actually FEELING what they do. Where the word feeling has both an artistic and spiritual value.

[Thermophile]

Yeah, agree with main thread.

I think the problem is that the metal world is more musically conservative in terms of structure, experimentation and other considerations of sound and aesthetics. So metallers can't bring anything new or interesting to industrial, they can perhaps make it more structured and palatable to the mainstream lol.
It works better the other way around. Metallers push the boundaries of metal when they come into contact with noise/industrial.
I remember the early Mayhem were big noise fans.

Even before NIN became too popular, I think bands like Ministry, The Young Gods, Godflesh tried to bring the two camps together.
Also these bands becoming popular were a gateway for a lot of people who were more curious to dig further into industrial.
I remember an interview from Sleazy Christopherson saying that he is embarrassed by the evolution of industrial music (referring to the industrial metal and neo-folk becoming the main variants in the 90's) and that he has not much in common with those artists. That was odd coming from him as Coil collaborated with NIN.

[Into_The_Void]

I still don´t understand why the starting point of this topic must be the combination of metal and industrial. Aren´t we talking of people with (extreme) metal backgrounds doing noise/industrial?
That the two genres show differences in purposes, aesthetics, structures etc..is evident. I even dislike the majority of combinations between metal and industrial, never been a fan of NIN (I like some songs, never dug it properly), I even don´t really like MZ412 for example, yet I do worship extreme metal AND industrial music separately (one of the few "mixture" between black metal and industrial I really enjoy is Mysticum btw). Nevertheless, I think that both genres share a lot in terms of anti-social attitudes, extreme spiritual/religious/political concepts, the relevance of underground activities (magazines, tape trading, etc), and more.

I remember the early Mayhem were big noise fans.

Not sure about Mayhem, although Euronymous was most likely a fan of old-school electronic music but bands like Rotting Christ (they used two samples from Zero Kama and Current 93 respectively on two tracks in "Passage to Arcturo") did for sure.

[acsenger]

Not sure about Mayhem, although Euronymous was most likely a fan of old-school electronic music but bands like Rotting Christ (they used two samples from Zero Kama and Current 93 respectively on two tracks in "Passage to Arcturo") did for sure.

Euronymous liked German electronic music for sure. If I’m not mistaken, when he was killed, there was a Tangerine Dream LP on his turntable. And the opening track on Mayhem’s Deathcrush is by Conrad Schnitzler, whom he even visited (and slept in the staircase of the house where Schnitzler’s apartment was).
Rotting Christ also have a track with Diamanda Galas as the guest vocalist.

[Leewar]

But they didn't really merge until NIN and such fused terrible Nu Metal with equally terrible dance beat "industrial"

I cant say ive ever heard any "Nu metal" on NIN material, though i havent really listened to much in recent years. Also considering Pretty Hate Machine came out in 1989, id say it pre-dated Nu Metal somewhat.

The metal + industrial sound came more from Head of David/Godflesh, The Young Gods, Ministry's "The land of rape and honey", Wax Trax etc etc...

My take is most metalheads simply dont know enough about how to make 'industrial', so you get a basic 'metal' song structure with some (usually boring) keyboard sounds and samples, same as when industrial musicians try and add guitars, and you get some predicable 'metal riffs'.

One thing that does make me laugh though is Industrial Black metal, which 100% of the time, means a Black metal band using a drum machine.

[Earth O.D.]

The metal + industrial sound came more from Head of David/Godflesh, The Young Gods, Ministry's "The land of rape and honey", Wax Trax etc etc...

This reminds me, I always thought Ministry got a huge slice of their "heavy metal stomp" formula from Head of David´s "Dustbowl"... just listen to "Tequila".