Earlier this month, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unveiled their selections for the 2015 class of inductees, which included the likes of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Green Day, Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Lou Reed, Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, and Bill Withers.
While the fans of these inarguably great bands and artists were surely pleased with the news, metal fans were once again left banging their heads against the wall, as iconic hard rock and metal bands like Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest were almost inevitably left off the list.
And as the New York Daily News reports, many significant figures in the metal community are getting fed up with the consistent snubbing of their style of music, not only by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but other institutions, such as the Grammy Awards.
“Just based on the intro riff to ‘Smoke on the Water’, which came out in 1972, it’s safe to say that almost every guitar player in a band that did make the Hall of Fame, picked up a guitar because of that riff and learned how to play off that riff,” says Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.
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“That song alone should get Deep Purple into the Hall of Fame. Just Ritchie Blackmore’s riff alone. That intro defines rock n’ roll.” According to Ian, bands like Deep Purple deserve equal respect to Led Zeppelin, and would likely receive it if the Rock Hall operated more like the Baseball Hall of Fame.
“When you talk about sports, you look at the stats, it’s all math,” Ian told the New York Daily News. “Babe Ruth hit x average and x home runs and so he gets in. Numbers don’t lie. When it comes to music it comes strictly down to taste.”
Indeed, in the case of the Rock Hall, a relatively small selection committee comes up with a pool of nominees that are then voted on by a group of more than 600 artists and music professionals. From this pool, a group of five to seven acts, on average, make the final cut each year, and few are ever heavy metal bands.
“Iron Maiden goes to anywhere in the world and they play in front of 50,000 people by themselves and you telling me they don’t fucking belong in there?” Steve “Zetro” Souza, the lead singer of legendary thrash group Exodus, recently complained to the Daily News.
Though Souza insists, “In our type of music, we don’t expect kudos”, he nevertheless admits, “It’s hard not to be disappointed by the voting.” Meanwhile, radio host Eddie Trunk says he’s completely given up on the idea of the Rock Hall showing any respect towards genuinely successful metal artists.
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“How can you have a Hall of Fame where it takes KISS, Rush, and Alice Cooper twenty years to get in,” he says, “but Green Day and Guns n’ Roses go in on first ballot and Deep Purple doesn’t get in. This is a symptom of the disrespect across the board toward hard rock and heavy metal.”
According to Trunk, “The Grammys haven’t gotten any better since they gave Jethro Tull a Grammy instead of Metallica,” referring to the 1989 Grammy Awards, during which dad rockers Jethro Tull were given the first ever Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Performance trophy over Metallica, who were arguably responsible for the award existing in the first place.
While several defected members of the Rock Hall committee have highlighted the nepotism that goes on behind closed doors, claiming that popular and influential artists are routinely snubbed over everything from personal dislike, to what label they’re on, it does little to explain why Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman wasn’t featured in this year’s ‘In Memoriam’ segment at the Grammy Awards.
Here in Australia, things don’t seem to be doing much better. While we don’t presently have our own Rock Hall, institutions like the annual Coopers Amp, which claims to be “the only Australian music award that doesn’t separate artists by genre or other arbitrary distinctions” routinely snubs metal and hardcore releases, leaving many fans frustrated and scratching their heads.
