Animals as Leaders guitar master Tosin Abasi talked about how hostile metal fans can be towards guitar-driven bands that achieve success by mixing elements of rock and metal with pop, telling Doc Coyle during a recent interview :
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“It might have to do with the fact that metal established itself as a counter culture. So these bands that have commercial success are actually participating in a more traditional… They appeal to more people, which means they are probably more digestible or they’re more conventional in a sense that they relate to pop music more than they relate to metal.”
But bands like Black Sabbath or Judas Priest or Iron Maiden also had fairly digestible hit songs…
“You’re right. As an emerging genre, it’s counter culture and it’s underground until it ends up being so good that record labels want in. So you have an evolution of it and I think the metalheads who were in conflict with liking commercially popular metal bands who aren’t like the Big Four and who aren’t ‘still metal’ is because they’re more aligned with the idea that metal is like an FU to pop music.
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“But those guys, I don’t think they’re thinking very critically. I think you are. [Laughs] You’re kinda like, ‘Well, the date seems to skew in the direction that this band is more liked than they are disliked but there’s a weird echo chamber of criticism coming form a very specific type of person.’