5 - Not from the Mind But the Heart

Summary

‘How does one establish and maintain a metal band?’, ‘how does a metal band produce music?’ or ‘how does it feel to be on the stage, with hundreds of people you need to win over?’ are questions a musicologist cannot answer beyond generalisations based on secondary and/or tertiary accounts since they are usually without the means to maintain the proximity to observe, let alone experiencing first-hand. For most academics, making music is a recreational process that they need as a contrast to their research life. Thus, few have investigated the ‘private life’ of a small musical unit we call the band in general, or the metal band in particular. This chapter focuses on the joy and despair of metal musicianship, picking up new skills, and experiencing all kinds of professional and personal conflicts embedded within the metal scene of Istanbul, Turkey. The experience captured in the historiography of the metal band is handled to define the thematic context by articulating phases of metal music-making: formation, songwriting, recording, gigging, publishing and reception. The author intends to assume the stance of a film director rather than a camera to provide thick description and analysis using the habitual tools of social sciences.