I can safely say that any band with a sentence for a name, 6 members or more and carefully combed to the side hairdos are not metal no matter what distortion pedal they have for their guitars.
I started getting seriously into music when I was a kid. 1978 was my big year. It just hit home. That was before real metal. There was Black Sabbath and that kind of stuff, but the real underground, hard stuff wasn't even around yet. It was cool to watch that happen and latch onto the next edge of things every time that progression happened.
I've got friends in bands who seem like they're always on tour, even still. It may be in some people's blood. I'm sure some bands do it just to earn a living or for the experience.
I'm always interested in new things. I don't go seeking out every band I can hear because there are too many, especially now with the Internet. There's no way you can collect everything.
I like whatever's good. Metal, rock, new or old - I don't care, as long as it does something to my brain.
When I was a kid, before there were VCRt, my parents had a movie projector, and we'd watch Frankenstein and Dracula. I just always though that stuff was cool - creepy comics and monsters and horrific stuff. Music lends itself to that whole theme.
Soccer matches in Europe have riot police. Metal is just people sloshing around drunk and sloppy and having fun, and there's nothing wrong with that. It is a great outlet for aggression.
You can see it in people's faces, when they're into a metal band. It's cool to see that being passed on.
That's what metal means to me, feeling that feeling when you hear something that totally turns you on.
People get so upset about lyrics, and they're probably totally cool with horror movies. That doesn't really make sense.
If it entertains you, cool - read it, listen to it, watch it. But if it horrifies or disgusts you or scares you, then don't listen to it.