There’s not much debate on where metal comes from, but on the subject of Satan, people have been claiming for 50 years that every prominent act from Black Sabbath to Judas Priest to Slipknot are made up of legit devil worshippers and that Satan himself is working through these artists. With five decades of confusion in the books, we’re looking to set the record straight and explore the truth about Satanism in metal.

Satan is one of the strongest concepts that any artist could draw from. Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Michelangelo all created works inspired by the devil, as did composers such as Faust, Verdi and Stravinsky. When it comes to heavy metal, Slayer and Venom are just modern versions of those artists, and instead of just writing music about the devil, they chose to cloak themselves in the devil’s robe.

In reality, legitimate Satanists are quite rare in metal, especially when we’re talking about theistic Satanism. For every Euronymous or Infernus, there’s about a hundred Marilyn Mansons who have received trial by media for allegedly corrupting the nation’s youth, spreading Satanic influence or causing mass shootings.

In this 50th Anniversary of Heavy Metal video, we explore how the devil is thematically rooted in heavy metal’s DNA, the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, the philosophy of non-religious Satanism and how bad information can cause the public to become drastically misinformed. Check it out in the video above.