The band Pete Townshend called “psychedelic heavy metal”
There’s no serious debate among metalheads about heavy metal‘s archetypal entry into the world of hard rock. Mixing occult lyricism, down-tuned guitars and horror imagery, Birmingham’s Black Sabbath conjured a dark riposte against the hippy flower idyll that still informed the music scene despite its utopian dream dying an inevitable death.
Metal’s DNA is on display from the moment 1970’s Black Sabbath‘s eponymous title track first creeped out the speakers, wandering into vision like the spooky apparition that haunts its chilling cover, spelling a new genre that would endure to this day.
However, heavy metal’s genesis is rooted in the 1960s counterculture that exploded on both sides of the Atlantic in the mid-1960s. At the decade’s tail end, Led Zeppelin beefed up the guitar attack as well as set a thematic precedent for fantasy obsessions, and Deep Purple’s hefty yet heady, engulfing riffs all circle Sabbath’s core as heavy metal’s unholy trinity.
Four months after 1968’s Shades of Deep Purple debut, the loudest, the most raucous cut yet was dropped on The Beatles’ double-LP. Written as a counter to critical accusations of soppy balladry, ‘Helter Skelter’s’ unreined guitar attack was born from the chaos at EMI studios during its 18 takes, channelling an explosive jam energy that had lain dormant during the highly produced records of the previous years.
Paul McCartney was inspired to dream up ‘Helter Skelter’ after reading an interview with The Who’s guitarist and principal songwriter, Pete Townshend. Seriously plugging their The Who Sell Out‘s ‘I Can See For Miles’ as their wildest yet, proto-metal fancies were unwittingly being explored like a domino effect among the bands that dominated Swinging London. Already garnering a reputation for powerhouse performances even before their stadium rebirth that would arrive with their rock opera era, one local band struck Townshend with their arresting but colourful underground sound.
“The only time I deliberately missed a gig with The Who was [when] I heard Pink Floyd were doing a concert,” Townshend revealed in 2023’s Have You Got It Yet? The True Story of Syd Barrett and Pink Floyd. Going Awol with Eric Clapton, dropping acid and heading to Tottenham Court Road’s UFO Club, Townshend was struck by engigmatic frontman Syd Barrett’s novel use of two echo boxes, blasting surreal waves of syncopated echos onto the frenzied crowd: “…it just turns into this what can only be described as spectacular psychedelic heavy metal…”
Long before conceptual space rock and blockbuster-selling albums, Pink Floyd’s Mk I was less progressive and centred on their former creative captain Barrett’s uniquely eccentric songcraft and lysergic garage attack, owing a little to San Francisco’s acid rock but spiked with a dash of baroque surrealism. As deftly showcased on The Piper at the Gates of Dawn‘s electric opener ‘Astronomy Domine’, Barrett’s vision for Pink Floyd showed how “heavy” could be gleaned from sonics as opposed to mere volume or later macho posturing.
It’s an intriguing thread in heavy metal’s long and storied tapestry, and Townshend may well have witnessed its birth a good while before a little-known band called Earth, featuring Ozzy Osbourne and guitarist Tony Iommi, played their first show in Birmingham’s The Crown pub, at psych and metal’s crucial transitionary pivot.
