Shredding guitar, blistering drums and screeching vocals might be the last place most people would expect to find comedy. However, humor has played a significant role throughout rock’s most important time periods.
As early as the late 60’s, Frank Zappa was making a name for himself as one of the biggest personalities in the music business. Creating a unique identity alongside the notable musical content started a chain that would appear in many acts to come.
Once psychedelic rock faded from the mainstream and soft rock dominated the charts, there was a standard expected for all bands during this era. Experimentation and individuality were frowned upon and heavy metal was quickly turning more radio friendly. Meanwhile, there was a movement spurring in the UK, breaking the trend that kept the industry at a standstill. Groups such as Motorhead and Judas Priest brought the aggression and intensity missing in the US media.
Another genre that was experiencing a breakthrough was the rising popularity of punk rock. Although the Sex Pistols aren’t the first to deliberately produce controversial content for the sake of notoriety, they were certainly a crucial building block for absurd and provocative lyrics. This became a stable for most punks that followed. One of the pivotal bands that incorporated comedy as an essential component were the Dead Kennedys.
Similar to Frank Zappa, Dead Kennedys focused on very real topics. Despite the seemingly over the top productions and silly metaphors, both groups were passionate about speaking against political corruption and social injustice. One of the misconceptions of comedy is that it is purely for entertainment yet there is plenty of information to be found underneath it all.
A few years after the success of punk, thrash metal was using many of their qualities as a major influence. With that, came their sense of humor too. It can be heard in bands like Megadeth and Anthrax who often had an amusing side to their brutally heavy sound.
Nothing puts this in better context than the 1987 release of I’m The Man:
In conclusion, comedy has made a bigger impact than most metalheads think. It’s been present since the dawn of rock and has always had a place in each generation.
Kerry King stated in a Sam Dunn interview that, “if you pay attention, (to the lyrics) you get something out of it. If you don’t care, you get get something out of it because it’s great music.”
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