First metal band you liked?

[Compound Egret]

Who was the first metal band you liked when you first developed a taste for metal?
What did you like about them?
Do you still like them, or do you feel the need to distance yourself from them because you are so much more "heavy" or "extreme" now?

I have to say Judas Priest. I liked the rhythm guitars, solos and vocals. The album cover graphics were cool too.

I went through a period where I still respected Priest but didn't listen to them at all. The whole Turbo era. I enjoyed Painkiller and started listening again.

There was a time when their tempos seemed to slow, but as I have aged I've realized that metal is good at all tempos. Tempo cannot save a crap song either.

[Tam]

Metallica, dimmu borgir, and whiteskull.....changed my life forever!!!

[kmfcm]

Napalm Death

16 yrs old

[Nick Macklin]

I'll admit it, when I was in preschool I was into DefLepperd but, I think I just thought the name was cool.

When i got older I was into G'n'R, Janes addiction and the older metalica ("in justice for all" and earlier) but when I was in my teens I was allllllll about Pantera. from there I got into DOWN (wich got me into the doom type shit like &Neurosis, Sleep, eyeH8tGod, Boris and Electric Wizard) and SuperJoint (which got me into the mathy-crusty type shit like Converge, DillengerEscapePlan, and Wally). Punk was always there though but metal remains my heart.

I gotta say though, Guns & Roses is the one that changed everything for me and alot of it had to do with the fact that Slash has always been so open about his being of mixed-race like me. He always kinda repped a certain kind of pride in his culture while not letting it define who he was or what he was into so there's more than just a little hero-worship involved as far as G'n'R goes.
Oh yeah, that and the fact that they're the shit and Appitite for destruction was like hearing a anthem about the neighborhood I grew up in.

[innocent_leader]

I HATED metal growing up. I dunno, it just kinda got under my skin. It didn't help either, that I asccoiated ALL metal with the crappy hair metal bands I saw on MTV. That all changed when I saw Faith No More's video for Epic. That opened the flood gates for me to get into bands like Pantera, GnR, Anthrax (my personal fav!). Kinda stopped listening to metal for awhile in the mid 90's as I was obsessed with grunge and punk.

I put my 'metalhead" hat back on when I heard some stuff from In Flames, mainly "The Jester Race". Awesome stuff.

[YamiNoSensei]

Black Sabbath, high school age back in the late '70s. The whole dark, heavy sound really intrigued me. Then Metallica, And Justice For All era, on the other side of my early-20s hardcore punk thing. I liked (and still do) that their lyrics had more substance and personal meaning, the music was complex without being overdone or sacrificing the basic heavy sound, and Hetfield actually SINGS instead of just howling and/or growling.

[Fast Eddy]

I liked Van Halen,Quiet Riot & Night Ranger (don't laff), when I didn't consider myself diggin' hard rock musik at all. When I decided I waz a metalhead waz when I heard Iron Maidenz NUMBER OF THE BEAST album on tape, dat I borrowed from my from my friendz cousin. This waz in '84 or '85 I think.