“Breaking the law” – in Styria

The local metal scene made “creative use” of legal liberties. This is one of the findings of historian Peter Pichler, who wrote the first scientific history of the Styrian style of music.

It has been a thorn in the side of many people, which has also been happening in Styria since the early 1980s. In the late 1990s, an old Catholic priest in a prayer group called for heavy metal record burnings, says historian Peter Pichler. A video of the same cleric still circulates online today, in which he described an AC/DC concert in Zeltweg in 2015 as satanic.

Pichler can no longer talk to him, the man passed away last year. “I wanted to interview him for my research,” he says. Just like 23 other eyewitnesses: Pichler has recorded nearly 30 hours of conversations with fans, musicians, and other members of the scene since the vomiting began. FWF Science Fund Funded project “Standard related tonal knowledge in heavy metal”. In addition, analyzes were made of song lyrics, record covers, concert flyers, and music magazines. The aim was to fill a research gap: in the past three years, Pichler had written the first scholarly history of the heavy metal scene in Graz and Styria.