Randomly meeting other Christian metal fans

The Christian metal fan base seems to be not so big, so meeting another fan always takes me by surprise.

Today I pulled into a random driveway in Tumwater, WA, trying to find my way when a blue car drove past, blasting Theocracy's "Thirty Pieces of Silver".

When I was stationed at Fort Wainwright, Alaska, in 2004, I was on temporary duty in Fort Richardson for New Equipment Training on the new Stryker.  I was wearing my Tourniquet hat (the one I wear when I slaughter chickens) when another soldier approached me to tell me he listened to them, as well.

Not the same, but still cool - also in Alaska in 2003:  I was on the SaviourMachine.com (remember that? good times) forum when another fan with whom I was chatting noticed I was in the Army in Alaska.  He asked me if I knew his brother...who turned out to be my commanding officer.

Anything like this ever happen to any of y'all?

I was talking to another school dad the other week and found we had a background growing up listening to the same bands. That was pretty cool. Even some local christian metal bands in the Australian scene.

Hey bodachi, do you live in the Olympia area? I live about an hour away. In fact, we are heading to Tumwater today.

bodachi wrote:Today I pulled into a random driveway in Tumwater, WA, trying to find my way when a blue car drove past, blasting Theocracy's "Thirty Pieces of Silver".

And you didn't chase them down?

^^I live in Rochester (5 miles west of exit 88)

^I did, in fact, chase him down.  We had a nice chat about music.

I forgot another meeting, the best one!
1998 at Fort Drum, New York, at Primary Leadership Development Course.  Bored one evening after classes, I visit a student who happened to be from my troop, but I barely knew him, as he was in a different platoon.  I ask him what he's listening to on his Walkman - Deliverance's "Stay of Execution".  Justin & I have been good friends ever since

bodachi wrote:^^I live in Rochester (5 miles west of exit 88)

ah, that's about 45 minutes away from me... cool. We may have to hang out and rock some time.

So I'm walking down the isle in my local Home Depot in central Washington State and I see this teenager wearing an authentic Deliverance "Faster For The Master" t-shirt. Of course I have to stop him and ask, "Hey, were did you get that shirt?" His dad said that he originally purchased it in Vancouver, B.C. when Deliverance played a venue called "The Paramount" on their Weapons of our Warfare Tour, back in 1991.

Here's the crazy thing....I was a roadie for "D" at that time and was in charge of the merchandise booth for that very show in Vancouver, 23 years ago.  Pretty cool to have sold the shirt to that guy who then passed it onto his son...

Never know what you'll find at your local hardware store!   

There's a guy I've known for 6+ years.  I work with him and our kids are friends.  I had a Facebook discussion with another friend about greatest Christian metal/rock albums and he chimed in.  I've known this guy for several years and had NO IDEA he ANY knowledge AT ALL of Christian rock and metal.

His daughter is coming over tonight for a sleepover and I hope to talk metal with him when he drops her off.

I was at a Warning (secular doom metal band) concert and saw a guy wearing an Aletheian shirt.  We chatted for a bit; he was a cool guy.  I was on a bus in Norway and saw a guy wearing a Becoming The Archetype shirt.  I was really tempted to yell at him while we passed by but didn't haha.

Here is irony for you.  
This has never happened to me, despite that fact that I live in Washington State....along with nearly half of the people who have posted in this thread.

A pretty major one was, my youth pastor was helping put on a concert for this indie rock band, so I helped out set up and tear down, kind of thing. And a guy who is really good friends with my youth pastor turns out to be a huge metal fan, mostly modern but a lot of classic bands as well, we have since become really great friends and go to concerts here in Spokane together, we both always have tons of stories of concerts we have been to and trade new music. Apparently we went to many of the same shows in the last few years as well and had no idea
You never know who your gonna run into

A more minor one was, a couple weeks ago, I was in the check out line at Costco and I was wearing my Mychildren Mybride hoodie, and the checker apparently was a big fan and we talked about the last time they were in Spokane like 7 years ago, that one really surprised me

Staybrite wrote:Here is irony for you.  
This has never happened to me, despite that fact that I live in Washington State....along with nearly half of the people who have posted in this thread.

We should have a CMR Washington conference or something

This was maybe back in the 90s. I was visiting family in Ohio and we stopped at McDonalds or a Burger King or something like that. There was this Metalhead couple there eating and I noticed the guy wearing a Bloodgood shirt. I went up to them and said “hey I know Bloodgood!”  Turns our they were on their way to Cornerstone. I told him I was jealous because I had never been but always wanted to go. We talked about other bands we were into at the time like Bride, Vengeance etc... we exchanged addresses in the hopes of maybe become pen pals. But I never wrote them and have always felt bad about it.

Staybrite wrote:Here is irony for you.  
This has never happened to me, despite that fact that I live in Washington State....along with nearly half of the people who have posted in this thread.

Hey Staybrite... where do you live? I am in Cosmopolis near Aberdeen... home of Kurt Cobain lol. I actually went to school with him and Chris but was never a fan. I liked some of Chris' other bands back in high school.

Wore my Vengeance Rising "Human Sacrifice" shirt to Disney world about 7yrs ago and someone in the line for a Toy Story ride got super excited when he saw it. We had a nice talk. I also got a lot of dirty looks and got a question from the photographer about what it meant when we were getting a picture with some of the characters (my wife's no 1 priority that year). Having a bloody hand nailed to wood with a line that says "Human Sacrifice" was probably not advised at Disney World. 

Wore my The Crucified shirt to a park for a picnic with my wife and our kids maybe 4 years ago and had someone there recognize it and had a nice talk as well.

This has happened both ways quite a few times over the years. Even at Christian shows wearing odd bands gets a conversation going. Recently went to see Disciple in Wadsworth Ohio and had a few good conversations because I wore a Demoniciduth shirt in a crowd of mostly hard rock fans. It singles out the metalheads or invites the curious. It's got a gruesome cover to which can invite those wondering if you're into secular metal.

Both of mine involve the Crucified:

I interviewed a guy about 4 years back who was applying to work at my warehouse.  Cool dude, real nice, and a crusty musician covered head to toe in tattoos.  I hired him, and on his first day of work during conversation he drops that he used to go to a festival called Cornerstone when he was a young teen in '89-91 or so and loved bands like Crucified, Scaterd Few, and Vengeance Rising.  I couldn't believe it!  I said "I knew there was a reason I liked you so much during your interview!" 

The other one I posted about here when it happened last year, and that was when a big SUV pulled up beside my company van at a stop light in downtown Los Angeles and were blasting something from the Crucified's Pillars of Humanity.   I yelled at him out the window "You're playing the Crucified!" and he just smiled and said "Hell yeah I am!" and then sped off as the light turned green.  It was surreal.

There have also been instances where people at various churches I've gone to have come up and also liked Zao, the Crucified, Tourniquet, Living Sacrifice, etc. when I wore shirts to church, but that's to be expected.  Made some good friends that way -- it's the main reason I always wear those shirts!

Frozen Fire wrote:Having a bloody hand nailed to wood with a line that says "Human Sacrifice" was probably not advised at Disney World.   

Ha!  Probably not.

Now that I think about it, I wore a Circle of Dust shirt at Magic Kingdom in January without any other fans noticing.

Not quite meeting other Christian metal fans, but the other day I was wearing my Theocracy - As the World Burns shirt and I had two different guys ask me "What's Theocracy?"

Make's me smile.

Tombie wrote:

Staybrite wrote:Here is irony for you.  
This has never happened to me, despite that fact that I live in Washington State....along with nearly half of the people who have posted in this thread.

Hey Staybrite... where do you live? I am in Cosmopolis near Aberdeen... home of Kurt Cobain lol. I actually went to school with him and Chris but was never a fan. I liked some of Chris' other bands back in high school.

I've been kicking around the South King county and North Pierce county area since the 1980's (Auburn, Federal Way, Puyallup, Orting).

ah, ok. well, maybe someday we could meet in Oly or something. We go there at least once a month.

As of a week ago, I now live in northern Idaho so Spokane is just a 45 minute drive!  Looks like somewhere in WA might be great for a bunch of folks here meeting up.

A year or two ago I was in North Richland Hills, Texas at a Lone Star Brahmas ice hockey match.  I was wearing a Crucified shirt, and one of the guys in there knew the band.  Had a nice short talk about it.

Also, one of the mail carriers in my area is a huge fan of old-school Christian metal and knows pretty much all the bands from back in the late 80s.

Kerrick wrote:As of a week ago, I now live in northern Idaho so Spokane is just a 45 minute drive!  Looks like somewhere in WA might be great for a bunch of folks here meeting up.

No joke! We could meet somewhere in the middle of WA and have a day long CMR conference

I work as a police officer in Stockholm and one day when I was the gym lifting weights, I randomly took a CD next to the CD-player and it was a CD with mixed metal music. I heard a song by Eternal Decision. I decieded to make my own cd with christian metal and play when I was working out in the gym. So one day I was working out when my superior officer came to me and asked me if it was my music playing from the speakers in the gym. I said yes. He said that he like it and listen to some of the bands.

Time passed and one day when we was riding along, patrolling the streets, he said: " I have to ask you a question?" "Are you a christian?" I said yes, why do you ask that? "Because of the music you played in the gym and how you are". Since then we listen to christian metal in the patrol car every time we ride together and we also went to a August Burns Red concert here in Stockholm.

Forgot to mention that I asked him later if he listen to Eternal Decision and he said no. He had never heard of them and it wasn't his mixed CD I had played. So that is still a mystery.