Who Invented the term Heavy Metal?

The phrase ‘Heavy Metal’ being used to describe a genre of music is now such a well-known term that it’s hard to imagine a time before it. 

How were the first bands described without that ubiquitous wording?

The origins of the phrase ‘Heavy Metal’ are a little bit lost to time, and there are a lot of half-truths and legends going round now as well.

So in this blog we will go through some of these ideas and separate the fact from fiction.

I have heard that the origin of the phrase ‘Heavy Metal’ comes from the Beat author William S Burroughs, that it was first used in a song, and that it was first used to describe Jimi Hendrix of all people.

So which, if any, of these is right? Where did the phrase actually come from?

When did Heavy metal start?

To look at the phrase, we first need to look at when Heavy Metal became ‘A Thing’. 

Bands as far back as The Beatles were influencing the rock and metal genre, getting into a battle-of-sorts with The Rolling Stones to see who could come up with the heaviest song.

According to Andrew O’Neill in his book, A History of Heavy Metal, it was Black Sabbath who first created the Heavy Metal genre with their self-titled debut album, Black Sabbath, in 1970.

In fact, he sums it up quite succinctly.

Okay, so that explains when Heavy Metal started. Now onto the real question: when did the term ‘Heavy Metal’ get coined, and by who?

Early Uses

Song Lyrics

The phrase ‘Heavy Metal’ was actually first used in the song ‘Born to be Wild’ by Steppenwolf, released in 1968.

However, the song is best remembered now for its usage in the 1969 film Easy Rider.

In the song, the phrase is not in relation to a genre or style of music, but instead refers to the sound of motorcycles.

“I like smoke and lightnin’

Heavy metal thunder

Racing in the wind

And the feeling that I’m under”

Steppenwolf, Born to be Wild

So the phrase was used in the song, and maybe some people heard it and liked the way it sounded, but it wasn’t yet used to mean the style of music we associate with it today.

Book reference

The fantastic Beat writer, William S Burroughs often gets credited with inventing the phrase.

While the phrase often gets wrongly accredited to his novel Naked Lunch (1959), the phrase actually appears in his later book, The Soft Machine (1961).

In that book, there is a character called ‘Uranian Willy the Heavy Metal Kid’. 

However the character is called this simply because he has a metal face. (It’s a strange book.) 

The book was popular though and Lester Bangs, who I will get on to in a moment, did reference Burroughs around the time that he started using the term ‘Heavy metal’, so it seems that there is some link between Burroughs’ book and the popularisation of the term today.

Jimi Hendrix

There is an oft-told story that it was in a review of Jimi Hendrix’s album, ‘Axis: Bold as Love’ from 1967 that the words ‘heavy’ and ‘metal’ were first put together.

And that is true, its just that they weren’t put together the right way.

“Jimi Hendrix sounds like a junk heap (Ben Calder crushed monolithic mobiles bulldozed), very heavy and metallic loud.”

Jim Miller, Rolling Stone

So close and yet so far!

But enough of these origins and technical first uses, who actually first started using the term?

The Inventor

There are two main claimants to the inventor of the phrase: Lester Bangs and Mike Saunders.

Both of these men wrote for the music magazines, Creem and Rolling Stone back in the early 1970’s. 

While there is some dispute about who used the term first and how they came up with it, it does make sense that a music magazine would be where the term first started to be used to describe a musical genre.

Mike Saunders

As I mentioned, Mike Saunders’ was a music critic for Creem and Rolling Stone, and he is also the vocalist/guitarist/drummer for the Punk band Angry Samoans.

The first time Mike used the term ‘Heavy Metal’ was in a November 1970 article for Rolling Stone.

The phrase was used when describing the second album by Humble Pie, As Safe As Yesterday Is.

“a noisy, unmelodic, heavy metal-leaden shit-rock band, with the loud and noisy parts beyond doubt.”

Mike Saunders

Certainly not a positive review, and strange that he hyphenated ‘metal-laden’, so ‘heavy metal’ isn’t exactly the term he used. 

Saunders’ recalled that he came up with the term as he was a Chemistry student, and was learning about leaden metals and it just came together in his head one day.

Lester Bangs

Lester Bangs’ first review of the Black Sabbath album ‘Black Sabbath’, on the 17th September 1970, doesn’t mention heavy metal.

In fact he had already used the term earlier that year.

But the Black Sabbath review does mention William S Burroughs.

“War Pigs’ and Burroughs’ Nova Express are saying the same thing”

Lester Bangs

This suggests that Bangs was a Burroughs fan, so when he does use the phrase we can assume it was at least in part inspired by Uranian Willy.

In the February 1970 edition of Rolling Stone, Lester wrote about Guess Who’s album Canned Wheat.

He described them in contrast to another style of music that was gaining popularity:

“With a fine hit single, ‘Undun,’ behind them, they’re quite refreshing in the wake of all the heavy metal robots of the year past”.

Lester Bangs

Again, this isn’t a very positive way to describe the genre, but it is the first.

Wrap Up

It is worth pointing out that the term ‘heavy’ had been added to plenty of music genres before Heavy Metal became a thing, so it’s not like the term came from nowhere.

However, someone had to invent the phrase (or in this case, two people, a song and a writer) and while the phrase may have eventually come about in another way, this is the actual history of the phrase.

Once the term was out there, it spread and pretty soon ‘Heavy metal’ was a useful definition for this new style of music becoming very popular.