It’s always so easy to say: that some kind of music saved your life at this or that moment. But then there are obviously cases where it’s not just metaphorical. And in these cases that was not the case any Kind of music. Instead, down-tuned guitars and double bass drums often play a crucial role in the operation.
Heavy Metal Saved my Life! is the name of a two-part television documentary by Andreas Krieger and Mariska Lief for Hessischer Rundfunk, which can be viewed in the ARD media library – and of course you can listen to it. The second episode is about queerness in metal, i.e. about all the non-heterosexual aspects that have of course always been part of the aesthetic fetishization of hardness, heaviness, leather and rivets from the very beginning. But the first episode is actually about fans whose lives metal literally saved, who pulled themselves out of such existential crises with the help of hard guitar riffs that going on at first seemed like the most improbable of all options. With what Andy from Munich has behind him, for example, it’s actually hard to imagine that Schlager or jazz would have been just as helpful. And with what the young mother Zyan from Mexico City had to deal with, the old disco hit “Last night a DJ saved my live” would have done just as little as sweet mariachi folklore or gangsta rap. Zyan, a victim of severe sexual violence, wants or needs to slip into the fantasy steel baths of the British band “Iron Maiden” instead.
Andy, on the other hand, whom the film team also accompanies to an “Iron Maiden” concert, has been addicted to heroin for far too long for lighter doses of music. For years he had belonged to the hard drug scene in the station district of Frankfurt am Main. And it is precisely there that he has to return from his new life in Munich, which has been stabilized with metal, because the concert will take place in the Eintracht stadium, and in Frankfurt’s Bahnhofsviertel a staggering number of people are still hanging on their needles and on the streets. Maybe even more than in his day, says Andy. You see him somewhat shattered confronting a past life that very likely would have been followed by an early death, and then at the concert you see him boxing euphorically at the sky, yelling choruses, other men with lots of band patches on their backs and lots of life stories beat blissfully on the shoulders in front of the stomach.
You can scare away junkies with classical music; sometimes you can catch them with metal
Junkies can be reliably scared away with cheerful baroque violins; therefore often the corresponding music program from the loudspeakers in the station forecourt. With hard metal guitars, on the other hand, you can apparently still catch them sometimes.
Unfortunately, why this is the case is not explored in more detail here. That would be interesting in every way. In an early story by Thomas Mann, a young woman, who was said to be consumptive at the time, is more or less killed by the unresolved love chord of Wagner’s “Tristan” while playing the piano for four hands. On the other hand, the tritone, which is extremely popular with metal bands because it is considered diabolical, has been bringing cathartic happiness to people from all over the world and from all cultures for decades. It would have been enlightening to talk to psychologists, neurologists and synaesthesia experts about what effects which music has on which disposition. And which sounds harmonize with which drugs or not. And why that is.
On the other hand, what is most important for patients is that a medicine works, not so much how and why. The documentation has other strengths – for example where it is shown how much this also applies to those who administer it, i.e. the musicians. Bruce Dickinson, the extremely cheerful and lovable singer of “Iron Maiden” has a lot to say. And as a special highlight, Brann Dailor from Mastodon opens his heart and photo album. From constantly googling around whether a record is finally coming up again or at least a tour, Mastodon fans have known for years that there is also a cure for the problem with the name Twitter: the short message service that is so much talked about now and the albeit coincidentally the same name as the most influential metal band of the 21st century. Brann Dailor, the drumming and singing energy center of Mastodon, has often stated how strongly her musical work was shaped, motivated and almost had to be said: inspired by the pain of the death of family members. Of course, fans know that the landmark album Crack the Skye was a tribute to Skye Dailor, Brann Dailor’s sister who died as a teenager. In this documentary here he also shows pictures of her for the first time and tells how, among other things, his extremely tricky drumming helped him to endure the loss, because you can’t cry and make music at the same time. At least not like that.
Heavy metal saved my lifetwo parts in which ARD media library.
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