Heshers of Gen X

Gen X Store

Metal heads, aka Heshens, aka Heshers 

"Hesher" provides a pretty solid mental image, of long haired, band shirt wearing person but not simply of someone who likes metal but of someone who is a metal diehard, who lives for metal music and no other music will ever be acceptable. I hung out with the metalheads all through High School. My boyfriend was a buff "Hesher" with long blond hair. All we talked about was music and all the bands we wanted to see live.  

Our first concert was Queensryche's OPERATION : MINDCRIME TOUR (1989), in Los Angeles. It was magical and I was hooked on concerts from that moment forward.  I had long curly hair that I would dye black, always wore tight jeans, black tops and biker boots....very similar to how I look right now. My love for music and especially the Heavy Metal variety has not changed. Once a Metalhead always a Metalhead!  

    "As to when ‘Hessian’ became ‘hesher’ and started getting applied to owners of sleeveless Slayer tees and bitching Camaros, well, that’s less well-recorded. But even with the myths of the rapacious Hessian hussars dispelled, the comparison makes sense. Heshers aren’t casual     metalheads, they’re lifers. They don’t fold their arms or bob their heads at shows, they windmill their hair and pump their fists. They live, breathe, fight, and die for metal. And though  superstition may abound that heshers are uncouth psychopaths (and some are, to besure), the truth is that they’re just more dedicated to a brutal way of life than most."                                                                                                                                  - EMPEROR RHOMBUS

                                                        Ostrantula

The Heshers I hung out with were not brutal or violent in any way. Metal music has been misunderstood by society since its inception. I find it calming and energetic at the same time. We hung out with all the other music loving groups and always welcomed the strays that felt like they did not belong.  We were LGBTQIA+ allies before we even knew what that meant. There is no hate when music surrounds your soul! 

There are numerous types of metal now and I enjoy all of them. We only had one known genre back then and it was called heavy metal. Later on there were distinctions between the bands and their subgenres, but non of that mattered to us headbangers! Top 20 bands that we listened to were:

1. Metallica
2. Iron Maiden
3. Judas Priest
4. Motorhead
5. Black Sabbath
6. Megadeth
7. Slayer
8. Anthrax
9. Twisted Sister
10. Quiet Riot
11.  Pantera
12.  Dio
13. . Van Halen
14.  AC/DC
15. . W.A.S.P.
16. Venom
17.  Kiss
18.  Accept
19.  Sepultura
20. Queensryche....ETC.

Death, Thrash, Speed, Hair, Grindcore and many more that we would learn about later....when MTV premiered and we all started watching Headbangers Ball! 

 

The "Devil Horns" became the symbol of heavy metal and we felt that only we knew who threw up the first horns and made it stick! 

Please do not stick your thumbs out and try to emulate the great Dio by destroying his trademarked symbol! Dio learned this gesture from his Italian grandmother who used it to ward off the evil eye...it is now a symbol for the "Devil's Music".....HEAVY METAL!