Did you ever get that sneaking suspicion that some metalheads are "faking it"?

Sure, they have bought all the right things. They have the posters on the walls, the tshirts, the CDs and rare vinyl and maybe even some classic demos.

But they're faking it and you can tell because they don't understand metal as being different from rock music, indie, emo, punk -- you name it!

They've picked metal as an identity, because they need some cause in order to claim their lives have meaning, but they don't seem to understand it at all.

It's like they're spectators at an art gallery who say "I like the red one; red's my favorite color!" or tourists visiting a battlefield when they can't remember who the two sides were. It's like they're not actually engaged with life itself much at all, but want to dress up like metalheads so we think they are.

Faking it