Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Nowhere Man]

One could say Zep, but Metallica et al don't sound much like Zep.

Same for Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly.

My pick: Motorhead

[own_king]

I would say Black Sabbath originated Heavy Metal as it came to be known in the 1980s and still is today. Judas Priest and KISS developed the look while Iron Maiden and Slayer helped perfect the sound. Led Zeppelin is probably my all-time favorite band, but they were too much of everything to be considered solely a Heavy Metal band, although I would have to say all of the above mentioned bands borrowed somthing from Led Zeppelin. They played some Hard Rock, Blues, Soft Rock, and even some Punk sounding soungs off their Coda album, because of Punk's popularity in England in the late 1970s and early 1980s, although this is widely regarded as being the worst of all their works.

[Imbroglio]

You forgot Uriah Heap!

And Queensryche!

[zappadelta]

The Who

[ChopChaeJoe]

It all started with the Kinks.


The Doors were pretty heavy.

[VanIslander]

In the clothes marketing division: Iron Maiden was hands down the Heavy Metal trendsetter. Those t-shirts!

Come on guys, Black Sabbath wuz the first true Heavy Metal band.
My best bud from high school says so.
(though he listened to Ozzie Osborne a lot more in his car I recall)

[Demophobe]

Judas Priest were pretty heavy and pretty early. They aren't "godfathers" though.

[huffdaddy]

Jethro Tull

[Dev]

AC/DC. Maybe they weren't the godfathers of metal, but deserve a place in the metal hall of fame for creating a great disticntive sound,

[ChopChaeJoe]

I don't really think of AC/DC as metal. Just amped up 50's, innunendo-laden boogie. Well, with AC/DC they aren't really even innuendos.

And any mention of led Zepplin should at least reach back to the Yardbirds. plenty of that gregorian chant kinda stuff.

[stumptown]

I'd have to say Black Sabbath. Their first album came out in 1968. Just look at what everyone else like The Who, Hendrix, The Doors, Cream was doing at that time. They had nowhere near the doom laden riffs that the self titled 1968 album had or 1969's Paranoid which kicked even more ass.

[rothkowitz]

Black Sabbath,Deep Purple,Motorhead....then it disintegrated into poodle rock some time in the mid 80s.

[Troll_Bait]

I think that Led Zeppelin were the first, but as another poster said, they were more than just a heavy metal band. In the same way that the Archaeopteryx was a transitional form between dinosaurs and birds, so was Zeppelin a transitional band, from the blues roots to what later became heavy metal. Black Sabbath was the first true metal band. Actually, they released their self-titled debut album in 1970, and the title track from "Paranoid" (also 1970) remains one of their most popular songs to this day. Iron Maiden and even Judas Priest came later (Priest released their first album in 1974). Deep Purple is from the same era, and might even be a bit earlier than Sabbath, but their sound might be considered more like "hard rock" and they don't consider themselves to be heavy-metal.

[own_king]

There's not even a question, in my mind, that Black Sabbath started the Heavy Metal scene and were the first band to described as being such. I threw Judas Priest and KISS in there because they transformed the look of Heavy Metal. And although Iron Maiden came along later, they (along with Slayer to a lesser extent) really helped develop the sound to the kind of Heavy Metal we hear today, which I think is what the OP was asking. But let's consider some others. The obvious front runner is Led Zeppelin and I can't argue that they have had an influence on Heavy Metal, as well as most other kinds of Rock and Roll that followed them. It's hard to ignore the greatest and most influential group of the early 1970s. This is the exact time when many up and coming Heavy Metal Giants were cutting their teeth, trying to find their sound. But it is still hard to listen to a song like "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and "Bron-y-aur Stomp" and say that's Heavy Metal. Led Zeppelin was about so much more than that. They shouldn't be pigeon-holed. So what about The Who, The Doors, Cream, Jethro Tull, Queensryche, Uriah Heep? While all of these are very good groups, they really did nothing to contribute to the sound of Heavy Metal, and were certainly not innovators of Heavy Metal as it developed. In fact, none of those groups were ever considered Heavy Metal. Cream was one of the greatest rock groups ever, but no way were they Heavy Metal. It's hard to emulate a genius like Clapton. He was also much more than that and proved it when he went solo. Is this the godfather of Heavy Metal? He was more blues than Heavy Metal. Queensr�che, had one big hit "Silent Lucidity," which was a great ballad, but falls short when compared to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" (as most ballads do). In fact, if we're going to go that route, let's throw in the Scorpions too, as they were harder and started earlier than Queensr�che, who didn't really get going until the 1980s. But I left them out for a reason, as well. They have little if anything to do with the way Heavy Metal has evolved into its current incarnation. Not many Heavy Metal groups fashion themselves after Queensr�che, Uriah Heep, the Doors, or Jethro Tull, but if they did they certainly wouldn't be described as Heavy Metal. In Canada, we had a Doors rip-off group called The Tea Party, and even at their hardest, they were only considered alternative at best. Now, of course, I consider AC/DC and Motorhead as being Heavy Metal - two of the best - but as far as being godfathers? Not unless we are going to broaden the meaning to take in Van Halen, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, etc. They all had as much of an influence in their own way as AC/DC and Motorhead. It is still hard to find any group who embodied Heavy Metal more or earlier than Black Sabbath did. They opened the flood gates and were the true Dons of the Heavy Metal family.

[stumptown]

Ooops, my bad. I thought I knew more than I did. I knew it was an influential year for rock because a lot of great albums came out that year.
Led Zeppelin was a great band but as another poster put out they were more blues based then metal. It's strange to consider how Black Sabbath went from being a blues band called Earth to the kings of doom.
I guess some of Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker's songs with enough fuzz and distortion could make for some pretty mean metal, so I can definately (heh, heh) see how the transition developed from blues to metal.