Here’s some raw meat for your next bar debate: Today’s heavy metal music owes more to punk rock than it does to metal of the past.

That’s one way of summarizing recent comments by Randy Blythe of Lamb of God on the No Limits Music Show (scroll down for the video). Blythe was discussing his musical origins. “I thought I was going to be the south’s version of Johnny Rotten,” he said. “Somehow I wound up in a metal band. It doesn’t make sense.” Moments later, he added: “If you look at the history of heavy metal, and where metal is now — all of the aggression, all that comes from punk rock. All of it! It didn’t come from heavy metal. It came from punk rock. If you look at the evolution of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, all of these bands, what were they listening to? Black Flag, the Misfits, all that stuff. You look at their t-shirts — that’s where it comes from. The technicality of metal comes from metal.”

So? Is the heavy metal music we know today a metal-ized version of punk, or a punk-ified version of metal? Or c) Is Randy Blythe full of crap? Discuss.

(Tip: Blabbermouth. Photo: Bobby Bruderle.)

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