Global Metal Studies International Bangers

In 2005 Scot McFadyen and Sam Dunn co-wrote and directed Metal: A Headbanger's Journey, a documentary that traced heavy metal's history and its cultural significance. Now McFadyen and Dunn are taking viewers on a trip around the world with Global Metal, which takes an in-depth look at some of the different countries and people that are embracing one of the most loved and most controversial musical genres in the world.

ChartAttack: How did you narrow down which countries you wanted to use in Global Metal?
Scot McFadyen: We had researchers that worked together and we said, "Let's start really broad. Let's come up with 30 countries and do some preliminary research to find out what the metal scenes are like there." We tried to spread it around the world to different places. We looked at Africa, but we really couldn't find much outside South Africa, but that was more European-based white South Africa. So we narrowed it down by the uniqueness of each story and found seven. We wanted to go to Iran, but that was the one place we couldn't get into as we said in the movie, and it worked out that all the Iranian people we had been emailing with were going to see Iron Maiden in Dubai, then Dubai became all about the middle east and not just Iran. We had to choose Brazil. I mean, Brazil almost made it into the first film. It's so big and, of course, we all know Sepultura. And Japan, because we had been there with Headbanger's Journey. We found it's so interesting and so unique to everywhere else.
Sam Dunn: Those were the two countries that I think people, when they think of metal outside of the west, they think of Brazil and Japan, so we knew we had to go there. It was sort of the five other countries that took a little more work.

What kind of difficulties did you encounter while filming in all of these other countries?
SM: We chose [to film] Iran because it was such a great story and we thought there was some really good metal coming out of there. So we actually tried to get in officially, but then we thought we'd just go in as tourists and we're going skiing and bring our cameras. But we couldn't even get a tourist visa with all the stuff going on with the Canadian journalist being killed there was all this rhetoric between the countries at that point.
SD: I think the country we were anticipating would be more difficult was China. But as we show in the film, we kind of end up just walking in with all this camera equipment. We were expecting it to be a more difficult process. But we just kind of walked right in and went to our hotel.
SM: We did this kind of covert-op where we tried to look like tourists everywhere we went. We would break down our crew and put our cameras in knapsacks and we had a golf bag, which probably looked a little weird, but it was carrying our tripod. So we had our golf bag in Tiananmen Square and we pulled out our tripod and got the stuff really quick.
SD: We went to Brazil and we spent some time in Sao Paolo and we interviewed Krisiun and we interviewed them in this square right by the cathedral in the centre of the city and we talked to them on the phone and told them that we want to do an interview there. They were like "Are you crazy?" Five years ago that was the most dangerous place in the whole country.

Is there anything that surprised you about a particular scene in one of the countries you visited?
SM: The scene in Beijing surprised me. How popular the metal is there and how extreme it is. It was really heavy stuff with really dark imagery.
SD: It just seems for some reason that the more extreme styles of metal seem to be really catching on in China. It's interesting because Tang Dynasty, the band that started it all in China, weren't extreme at all. They are a more prog, Rush-ish kind of band, and now all the kids are into black metal and death metal, so that was a big surprise.

Ever thought about filming in some of the European countries with big metal scenes like Greece, France or Poland?
SD: Poland was one of the countries that was on the top of the list and we actually did go there and do some filming. But it was difficult to find a story for Poland, apart from the amazing death metal scene that they have there. But we really didn't think there was enough to build something around. There are the elements of pagan and Viking metal, and it was a communist country for many, many years, but we didn't find anything that really grabbed us unfortunately.
SM: We talked about making it a TV series. If we continue Global Metal, there's another 15 or 20 countries that I think would be great to go to, like Finland or Italy or Greece. Then there are other South American countries like Argentina or Chile... [laughs] but we need to be financed first.

What do people from around the world think of the North American metal scene?
SD: When we tell people we're from Canada, they say "Rush." That's what people think of, Rush or Voivod. I think generally there's a lot of knowledge in these countries about the metal that has come out of North America and Europe because these are for them the birthplaces of metal and these are kind of the strongholds of metal. So originally through trading tapes and sticking stuff in the mail and now through the internet, this music has spread throughout the world. What do they think of it? I think they think it's pretty great. But what's happening now is these young people want to make metal of their own, and now they're starting to say "We want to do metal that has some influence from our own culture" where they can bring there own lyrical themes and issues into the music and traditional instruments. I think the west has had a huge influence, but things are starting to change now.

A lot of the countries you visited seem to delve more into the extreme sub-genres like death or black metal.
SM: It's the same across the board. Those Norwegian black metal bands have spread. They're very influential. Bali [Indonesia] is pretty unique, but we couldn't fit it into the film. We have a whole 15-minute section about Bali's black metal, which is strongly influenced by Norwegian black metal. They sing about Hindu and Pagan gods from Bali.
SD: It's like the latest wave of metal globalization is black metal, it seems. This is the new kind of metal that kids around the world are getting excited about. I think it has a lot to do with the themes of the music, that the Norwegians talked about their own culture. They talked about the Vikings and the Norse mythology and so kids in other countries are saying "We've got our own gods too and we've got our own stories too, so we can bring that to metal." As we said in the first film, metal is a release and it's a part of who you are. It's a freedom of expression for a lot of these kids and when they sing about war and conflict it's not like Slayer, who are singing about it happening thousands of miles away. It's actually happening in the streets that they live in, so obviously for them the stakes are higher, so I think the metal comes from a place that's more personal than just some kind of fantasy of imagination.

You said the first film defends metal, but I think Global Metal does equally if not a better job at showing the positives of metal and how important it is for some of these kids.
SM: It definitely gives a positive light on metal. And it's not like we contrived that. That's the way it is. In these communities, these people, everyone was so welcoming. When they heard we were coming to Indonesia, 30 guys would show up to our hotel and they were like, "What do you need? Do you want us to drive you somewhere?" They were just really supportive. 
SD: I hope what we get through in the film is not just a different perspective on what metal is about and how it's changed, but also break down some of the preconceptions about people that live in different parts of the world. We hope through this film that you get a different perspective on Muslim kids in Indonesia or kids growing up in Brazil that we don't get to see through the media or the mainstream. Ultimately, metal is a positive force in people's lives.

It looks as though most people you interviewed were pretty cool with you guys. Was anybody a real asshole?
SD: Well, Slash wanted money to be interviewed, so we were a little disappointed with that. But for Global Metal everyone was really receptive. For the first film we unfortunately weren't able to get Metallica because they just finished doing Some Kind Of Monster and they were pretty burned out with having camera crews around. But they liked the film and we used "Master Of Puppets" in the film and we got an interview with Lars [Ulrich] for Global Metal and he was great to us. We went to the Metallica rehearsal studio and hung out with him for a few hours and he was like, "Listen, don't ever make another film without us."