Is heavy metal alive and well in Los Angeles?

Manowar posters on my wall and the stereo volume on 20. Pounding drum beats make my head hammer continuously like a steel press in a steel factory. If you haven’t guessed it yet, I am a metalhead.

I have been since I was 2, which was the first time I heard Led Zeppelin’s “A Whole Lot of Love” that my dad played to me from the inside of his pickup truck. I didn’t know it then, but that was my beginning of being a metalhead and heavy metal musician.

Heavy metal in Los Angeles was big in the 80’s and that saw the rise of such greats as Motley Crue, Poison, Ratt, Guns n Roses, Dokken and Slayer. With that said there is one question that I need more clarification. Is heavy metal alive and well in Los Angeles or has it faded into obscurity? For the next post I’ll search for answers from record stores to musicians, planning to shake L.A’s heads to metal.

Note: First in an ongoing series.