Metallian contacted metal musician and other industry professionals to ask about the existence and relevance of the metal underground today – 08.2020

	Is the ‘underground’ still a relevant term in heavy metal and does such a thing still exist?
Sam Pryor – Guitarist For 3000AD	Interesting to consider! Well the “underground” is not like it was in the tape trading days when you really had to do a lot of work to find obscure bands. But now there is a different type of underground, everything is readily available, but the sheer volume of material out there means that bands can still be hard to find out about. So you can still have that experience of finding a rare gem that most people don’t know about!
Louise Girard – Former Sang Frais fanzine editor and co-author Of L’Évolution Du Metal Québécois Tome 2	There will always be an underground scene: A scene that the traditional TV/radio/ newspaper will not cover. Artists of the underground are not only into metal culture but into any ‘disturbing’ form of art. There is still plenty of bands that continue to emerge from the basements, making noise and melodies for our ears to discover. Even if it’s ‘easy’ to make your music available to the world today, it is still a day-to-day battle if you want to make new people know about your band. There are soooo many bands! In the ‘90s, you would usually learn about the bands in your area first and then your circle would grow depending on how curious you would be as a listener, but now, you can discover any band from any country just by turning on your computer or even phone! The underground community is different but still gathers at great concerts when there is no god-damn virus.
Mastro Vun – Guitarist For Crepuscolo	That’s a very interesting question! We think that the underground metal scene is still alive and the fact that there are so many good bands confirms it. The problem is that the guys are less underground. Many say that in the ‘80s and ‘90s the underground was more alive than now because there weren’t social networks and stuff like that. There was the word of mouth about shows and concerts. We agree with that, but we think that the use of technology is very useful if done in the correct way. Social networks and messaging services aren’t a problem but are a source used to share information. They are the killer if everything if used just for an end in itself.
Michael Dormann – Singer And Bassist For Anasarca And Editor For Metal Unites	One has to ask the question: what is “underground”? Bands like Metallica, Kreator, et cetra are definitely not underground anymore. If you consider that there are now VIP tickets at concerts that include a meeting with the bands … which used to be normal without having to pay for, back in the days…We have a good underground scene here in our region. Many concerts are organized, but they are not always well attended. This is certainly also because young people no longer come down from the sofas. Often there are events where the scene that already met at the age of 17 meets. We are all old-ass bastards now (smiles). Detached from ‘quality – but what finally is quality? There are always different tastes in music. There are more and more bands, there are more and more releases, the bands are getting more and more costly with their fees because they hardly make any money with online services or CD sales. Nevertheless, metal has changed a lot. It may have been rebellion in the past, but today it is simply the love of music. The metal fans are older today, have families and jobs and have short hair. Shirts from the big bands are sold at H&M, et cetra. Is that still underground? Probably not.